Over the past year, the remit of Arts & Business Scotland in fostering partnerships between commerce and culture has extended to embrace other areas within the remit of the Scottish Government's Culture Minister covering the historical heritage of the nation.

That is reflected in the nominations for the Arts and Business Scotland Awards, the winners of which will be announced at Glasgow's Theatre Royal on October 24.

The National Trust for Scotland's partnership with the Clydesdale Bank on a community access project is in the running for a Placemaking award and the excellently-named Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) is nominated in the International category for its work in China with Nomad Exhibitions.

Whether or not the RCAHMS/Nomad project in Nanjing wins, the Tale of Two Cities exhibition there is already a remarkable story that has received international recognition. Rebecca Bailey, head of education and outreach at RCAHMS, has just returned from the Congress of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums, where the success of the exhibition was a hot topic, because every Western member of the body wants to be working in the East and the region is suppling the confederation with all of its newest members, including delegates from Korea, China and Hong Kong.

In May, this year, it was announced the run of A Tale of Two Cities in Nanjing was being extended after it welcomed its millionth visitor, more than double the attendance at a blockbuster London show like Pompeii at the British Museum.

In Scotland, the biggest RCAHMS show might attract 7,000 visitors a month, a figure often exceeded in a day in Nanjing.

Bailey, who co-curated the exhibition, explains that premise of the show as comparing the development of the cities of Nanjing and Edinburgh though history.

"There is a broad correlation with the distinct periods in Edinburgh's development between the Old Town and the Ming dynasty which built the Forbidden City, a model for the more famous one in Beijing, and between the Georgian New Town and Qing period, which built the larger walled town, the walls and gates of which still survive," she says. "Then beyond those boundaries are the modern suburbs of both cities."

Both Edinburgh and Ninjing are World Heritage Sites and the exhibition compared the lives of the people in each - how they make their money and use their leisure time - as well as comparing the design of the university and individual homes.

Bailey is quick to give credit for the Nanjing project to Nomad Exhibitions and founder Tim Pethick, who came to RCAHMS with the suggestion that they develop a proposal to open a new exhibition space in the redeveloped Nanjing Museum after Nomad had worked with the Chinese on an international touring show of their Ming dynasty collection.

"Nomad introduced us to how to work in China, the appropriate behaviour in business and negotiations. They had that pre-existing relationship and you need to invest time and money in building that trust," says Bailey.

If that was a steep learning curve for Bailey and her colleagues, the demand for the exhibition from the public is taking them completely by surprise.

"The exhibition has a very string physical component with two touch tables, each for eight users at a time, where there are historic maps and you can peel off the layers of history.

"We underestimated the demands of people visiting and had to toughen up the technology. The whole exhibition was much more spacious there than it would be here, just to cope with the numbers."

A Tale of Two Cities will have its moment in the other city, when it runs in Edinburgh next year, but Nomad and RCAHMS are already planning their next collaboration, a Scottish show, in Nanjing and travel their next month to begin that next project.

The Herald is media partner for the Arts and Business Scotland Awards 2014.