Henley-In-Arden Tourism Investigation

Henley-In-Arden _

Introduction To The Investigation And Henley-In-Arden.

This investigation is an intensive look at tourism in the village Henley-In-Arden. The main question is ‘Should tourism be encouraged or restricted?’ To find this information several things within the group had to be done. Certain people had to measure the pollution in the area. Questionnaires and opinion lines were used to find information from the residents of Henley-in-Arden. Tax discs were checked as it gives a brief idea of where the people are from.

There are negative and positive aspects to tourism.

Henley-In-Arden lies Southwest from the midlands, Northwest from Stratford-Upon-Avon and East-south from Redditch. Henley-In-Arden is near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Henley may be popular because people make short stops at Henley as its one of the closest villages and the famous birthplace of Shakespeare.

All types of visitor engaged in tourism are described as visitors, a term that makes up the basic concept for the whole system of tourism statistics; the term visitor may be further subdivided into the same-day visitors and tourists as follows: visitors are defined as people who travel to a county rather than in which they have their usual residence but outside their usual environment for a period not exceeding 12 months and whose main purpose of the visit is other than the activity remunerated from within the place visited; same-day visitors are visitors who do not spend the night in a collective or private accommodation in the country visited; while tourists are visitors who stay in the country visited for at least one night.

More than 75% of the town's work force is employed in the service industries (tourist-related employment, catering and financial services).

Advantages of tourism:

* Income introduced into local area. Capital is spent in local shops and in local facilities.

* Tourism provides employment for local people and consequently sometimes prevents migration away from remote areas.

* Increased interest in the area could lead to better protection of environment or other attracting features.

* Greater wealth in local area means a higher proportion of taxes available and therefore improved road and rail network.

Disadvantages of tourism:

* Much of employment provided is only seasonal.

* Congestion of people and vehicles, sometimes in old settlements that are not capable of dealing with the problem

* Increased development can cause a change in a traditional way of life.

* Loss of privacy for local population

* Litter, crime and vandalism.

* Over-use can damage the attraction, e.g. environment degradation due to visitor pressure.

Strain on resources

We visited Henley-In-Arden on the 13th of <May 2002. From the time 9:45 to 2.00 the weather was wet, a little windy and cold. It wasn’t suitable weather for tourists anyway as they arrive most in the summers. It was inconvenient for my group, as people did not wish to be stopped to answer questionnaires in the rain.

During the time we were there, most working people were at work. This had an influence on my results, as my questionnaire required some working people to answer it (“Are many of your buyers/consumers tourists?”). Shopkeepers were too busy to be interrupted. I only managed to get local elderly people to answer my questionnaires, which seems biased but the high street contained a lot of elderly people.

The aim of my questionnaire is to answer my initial question ‘should tourism be encouraged or restricted?’ This will require a lot of primary and secondary data.

My main questions are ‘What distance are people willing to travel to reach Henley?’ ‘What positive affects does tourism have on Henley?’ ‘What negative affects does tourism have on Henley’ and ‘should tourism be limited or encouraged?’

My hypothesis is that tourism is needed (only to a certain extent) in Henley because when people are involved with this village, the standard of living is enhanced and Henley makes more profit as employment increases when tourists come in the summer. Small shops contain ornaments that tourists tend to buy. However bigger shops are being created and tourists require more and more facilities. This removes the ‘village appearance’.

It is important to find out whether tourism should be encouraged or restricted because Henley may be suburbanised or might lose its history if tourism continues. Henley may be soon used as a home place for ‘outsiders’ (settlement causes intrusion and further sub urbanisation).

On the other hand, without tourism Henley may not be as clean and orderly.

Basic map

Henley-in-Arden

High street in the summer

Analysis of key questions.

The purpose of this part of my investigation is to answer all my key questions and give explanations, which will ...

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On the other hand, without tourism Henley may not be as clean and orderly.

Basic map

Henley-in-Arden

High street in the summer

Analysis of key questions.

The purpose of this part of my investigation is to answer all my key questions and give explanations, which will be used in my conclusion. In order to get answers to my key questions, I will need to examine the primary data (questionnaires, noise levels, bi-polar analyses, opinion lines, tax disc checks for the sphere of influence, traffic and pedestrian counts) I have collected from Henley-In-Arden and present is as evidence through graphs. I also need to consider secondary data (such as ‘the U.K census and pollution levels from the council e.t.c.) in order to receive further information that I couldn’t collect. When I am going to give reasons for my answers, I will need to link it with tourism in Henley-In-Arden as this is my central study.

My first key question is:

1) What distances are people prepared to travel to reach Henley-In-Arden? This key question is important because it will help me understand car-owners’ maximum perimeter of travel to Henley. The answer to this key question will require my sphere of influence map that shows tax disc readings of ten cars. There was a car park on the site from where I collected my data. To prevent being biased in anyway (e.g. looking at the tax discs before picking them), I had to point out the ten cars at random beforehand. If you look at my sphere of influence map on the next page whilst considering that my data is on a very small scale, you can see that three car owners are from Birmingham, which means that people are prepared to travel from a distant city to reach Henley. You can see that only one person was from Henley and two people were from Solihull. Four people are from Stratford. This is a district that has the famous birthplace of Shakespeare, contains shopping villages such as ‘Hatton’, hotels and country clubs. As it is a close-by village, the residents of Stratford and some of their tourists, who may have hotels to stay overnight, will visit Henley. In some situations tourists may visit more than once because Henley has enough facilities to provide for tourists e.g. Safeway on the high street. These occurrences can cause more damage to Henley’s surroundings.

I think the situation at the moment may be that people who are prepared to travel long distances come infrequently and people who live close to Henley come regularly.

My second key question is:

2) what are the positive and negative affects of tourism? (In this question I will integrate tourism in general with tourism in Henley). It is necessary that I examine tourism’s positive and negative effects and see whether there are happening in Henley because this will help me reach a conclusion that will either defend or go against tourism in Henley. To begin with I am going to cover the major positive effects of tourism in general and link it with Henley by using primary and secondary data

Tourism has many beneficial affects such as:

* Income introduced into local area. Capital is spent in local shops and in local facilities.

* Tourism provides employment for local people and consequently sometimes prevents migration away from remote areas.

* Increased interest in the area could lead to better protection of environment or other attracting features.

* Greater wealth in local area means a higher proportion of taxes available and therefore improved road and rail network.

In Henley-In-Arden, most of these factors have been accomplished. Judging by the bi-polar analysis of the sites, I know that Henley is orderly because all together, on the eight sites, there are a total of 16 bins. A lot of the local residents (questionnaires) believe that without tourists visiting Henley, money would not be spent on the area to improve facilities, which would affect the local residents. Here is data from the Stratford–on-Avon district council:

(1) Local Mini Recycling Centres

In Henley there is a Local Mini Recycling Centre where Containers are provided for collection of clear, green and brown glass, waste paper and magazines, textiles, steel and aluminium cans. This is a sustainable method of helping to keep Henley tidy because when the containers are overflowing, the Stratford district council are contacted to solve the problem. The council concentrates on the village Henley due to the fact that tourists make untidiness. But this method is an advantage to Henley’s residents as well because they also play a role in making Henley untidy anyway.

(2) Locations of CCTV cameras

Existing cameras

Located At…

In 1995 Stratford on Avon District Council embarked upon a policy of installing CCTV cameras in the major population centres within the District. The intention is, that in partnership with Warwickshire Police, these cameras will:

· Help to prevent and detect crime
· Improve public safety
· Reduce the fear of crime

Vandalism and crime is common as expected in a lot of places. It gives more reason to install cameras when tourists arrive as crime and vandalism increases. The locals are safer due to this.
The funds for the cameras and the associated control and command equipment were made available by Stratford on Avon District Council combined with substantial grant aid from The Home Office as part of Central Government's Crime Reduction Programme.

Progress with CCTV

This process began in Stratford upon Avon. There are now cameras covering the main shopping streets, car parks and known problem areas.

The Stratford scheme proved to be tremendously valuable resource in the battle against crime and encouraged by this success CCTV coverage was extended to Studley and then to Alcester

The (look below) from all towns continue to be very encouraging and have led to Stratford on Avon District Council's latest project, to extend CCTV coverage to Shipston on Stour and Southam and to extend the coverage in Stratford upon Avon. The work installing the cameras is scheduled to be complete in late spring 2002. This method is sustainable in keeping Henley safe from criminals etc. It also improves the image of Henley, which invites furthermore tourists to increase Henley’s income.

The Future of CCTV in the District

The next planned development is likely to be the deployment of "mobile" CCTV in rural areas or those smaller settlements were the cost of permanent cameras is prohibitive and the need for them is, probably, only of a temporary nature. It is also expected that those towns with CCTV will continue to expand their coverage as the situation demands.

The Results

These figures show the number of all incidents, and the arrests resulting from them, that were either entirely to the credit of CCTV detection or where CCTV played a major role in the incident.

(3)

From this table you can see that the toilet in Henley opens at eight am and closes at 6.00 pm during the winter but during the summer it closes at 8.00 pm. This may be because during the summer, it is the peak tourism season. Tourists may stay overnight or late so it is more convenient. The public toilets are good quality because they have baby changing areas and disabled toilets. They are also of use to local residents, which is an advantage to them and also improves the image of Henley.

The negative aspects of tourism are:

* Much of employment provided is only seasonal.

* Congestion of people and vehicles, sometimes in old settlements that are not capable of dealing with the problem

* Increased development can cause a change in a traditional way of life.

* Loss of privacy for local population

* Litter, crime and vandalism.

* Over-use can damage the attraction, e.g. environment degradation due to visitor pressure.

* Strain on resources

A lot of these factors are in action. If you look at my questionnaires, you can see that many residents also complain about the loss of privacy and overcrowding. Some residents complain that they have lost many of their high street shops due to consumer changing habits – most of which are tourists.

My graph (ahead) shows the relationship between noise levels and vehicle count. There isn’t a visible pattern. There may be anomalies because we didn’t go at the peak season of tourism, which is summer. The traffic was at chance and the peak noise reading was due to a train. I don’t think a proper pattern can be seen unless the readings and data are collected during summer. There are traffic problems though. If you look at the previous pages where my proportional circles that show noise readings are, you can see that the quietest noise reading is sixty decibels that is fairy high and it continues up to ninety-four decibels. If you look at isoline map which contains the noise levels of Henley-In-Arden you can see that the central area of Henley is quieter compared to the outer edge of the village. This is probably due to the high levels of traffic of people moving into and out of Henley. These high levels of noise around Henley are disruptive and cause a lot of damage to the environment. If you look at my radar map ahead, which shows two monitoring sites, one at kerbside of the main A3400 road running through the town and one background location (30 metres from road), you can see that pollution levels at the kerbside are at a peak of 55ug/m3. The kerbside pollution is much higher compared to the pollution levels on the background location, which is a peak of 20 ug/m3. The kerbside pollution is most likely due to the traffic, which is a common cause of pollution.

(1) Here is the List of Air Pollution Monitoring Sites from the Warwickshire district.

In Henley the air quality isn’t good. The pollutant is fine particles and benzene. The source fine particles are Traffic, industry (e.g. quarries, combustion of fossil fuels and cement process). The source of benzene is production and use of petrol and diesel.

Generally this table shows that traffic, which may be due to day-trippers, is harming the environment of Henley-In–Arden.

(2) Hotel, new building etc.

These new building and hotels encourage furthermore tourists to come and alter the local’s way of life. They also remove the natural village look, which can suburbanise the village. If you look at the two maps ahead, which date 1906 and 1955, you can see that there has been a lot of sub urbanisation. There have been many changes e.g.: more roads for car owner’s convenience and more buildings have been created as well.

3) Should tourism be encouraged/restricted in Henley…why? I think that

Areas on the high street were perfectly pleasant but because there was a main-road running through them, they degraded quite heavily. But for the main area of Stratford, wherever the visitors go it is generally aesthetically pleasing. There is an abundance of flowers and historical buildings, which are clean and tidy primarily because there are tourists there, which in turn gives the council enough money to fund street sweepers and police, to keep graffiti, crime, vandalism and litter away from the tourists and surroundings. Certainly, the tourists have a positive impact on the areas they populate most. I think tourism in Henley should be encouraged because the image of Henley is made more pleasant due to the tourists and Henley is more popular for this reason. There are more jobs available for local residents, as there are more new shops and companies introduced into the area. I have concluded that tourism is good for Henley; in fact that it is the life-blood of Henley. Maybe tourists are rude,maybe tourists are inconsiderate to the people of Henley, but I know that I personally would rather have a job, a livelihood ,a high quality of living and tourists in the town that the opposite to that. They bring very few problems to Henley- one mentioned here, possibly the most drastic one was that you could not walk own the street because of the tourists. Instead of using this as a negative factor, I would consider this good. If this has a solution, it is pedestrianisation. If this were brought about, then it would benefit Henley’s local economy hugely. One way is that the car would decrease in popularity because there were less convenient parking spaces near the shops. Instead people would use public transport, and this money could in turn be reinvested to benefit the isolated rural communities.