human fieldwork Flashcards
hypothesis/ title
Lyndhurst high street is aimed at tourists
location: where and why
Lyndhurst high streets in the middle of the New Forest National Park in the south of England. It has grown in popularity with visitors and tourists over the years and we suspect that this has attracted more and more businesses aimed at tourists instead of local residents. The area gets very busy in peak seasons and maybe classed as a Honeypot site.
method
on the 3rd of July Wednesday I walked up and down both sides of the main high street and recorded the types of shop/services that were present based on a pre-determined key. This systematic sampling. We also carried out a visitor questionnaire using random sampling.
I carried out this high shop transect of the high street in order to establish the types of shops/services that were there and then established whether more of them were aimed at or likely to be used by tourists or locals. The questionnaire allows me to find out whether the majority of people visiting are tourists or live near by.
analysis and conclusion
My transect map show that lyndhurst high streets is aimed more at tourism than by locals. There are a larger proportion of shops and services that are more likely to be aimed to be used by tourists than they are by locals. When calculation the percentage of shops aimed at tourists 58% were classified as tourist shops with only 42% being aimed at more locals. The transect also includes a visitor tourist center which would suggest a high volume of tourists. Questionnaire results support this with most people visiting from outside the area. Observations of the shops found that even if they weren’t specifically aimed at tourists sold something aimed at tourists, for example postcards.
Calculating the % of shops aimed at tourists made the results easier to interpret as it made clearer than the map and the proportion of each of the shop were obvious.
strengths of pie charts/ shop map
+ very visual. Easy to ploy by hand
+ full range of data can be seen together with the spatial patterns and groupings of data
+ appropriate for the type of data
+ pie charts useful to show proportion
weaknesses of pie char/ shop map
- subjective opinion about who the shops are aimed at
- these are only a snap shot in time. it would be different at different times of the year on different days of the week.
how pie chart/ map be improved
additional information on the specific types of shops a categories were lost in presentation
Pie chart only has two sets of data, cold have included other categories
strength of collecting data
Transect
+ the method of data collection is simple to carry out.
+ systematical is simple and has good coverage of the area
+ little equipment needed
+ categories easy to assign
Questionnaire
+ random sampling used
+ straightforward and closed for ease of response
+ short to encourage more responses
weaknesses of data collection
Transect - subjective opinion - not enough variety in categories - map being out of date and not matching existing buildings Questionnaire - too small of a sample - limited time - reluctance to respond
next time for data collect
Transect more categories for accuracy more up to date map Questionnaire larger sample size different times of day/week/.year shopkeeper questionnaires could be asked
