Stair Hole, less than a mile up the coast is another example of erosion. It is younger than Lulworth cove and this may give us an idea to what Lulworth Cove would have looked like in the past.
Method
During my visit to Lulworth Cove I did many surveys and took several statistics of the various places we were. The different techniques will tell us if the tourism is helping the coastal environment.
One survey I did focus directly on the tourists, by using a tourist questionnaire and tally chart. However, not all the people we asked were tourists, some were people living in the nearby area and I still got some very good results. I asked the people a series of questions that are directly related to the management of Lulworth. A major disadvantage of this is that the time in which we went was not peak tourist season so I was now able to ask many people.
Figure 3 – Lulworth car park
I also did a car count of all the cars in the Lulworth car park; this will roughly tell us how many people have come to see Lulworth on that particular day. I made a tally chart of all the cars that were in Lulworth car park and assuming there was 3 people per car on average I then worked out the average number of people. Again, as it was not the peak season, there were not as many cars and therefore, fewer people as many people would have been at work or school etc.
Figure 4 – Stair hole Figure 5 – Durdle Door
Another technique we used were bi-polars, the places these were performed were; Durdle door, Stair Hole, Lulworth Cove, The High street and The Car Park. The bi-polar is a table with 5 describing words; litter, noisy, facilities, natural and dirty; the rating was out of 5 (1=bad, 5=excellent). So for example we could go and look at the car park and that that it was rather clean so I would give it a 4. This is good because it gives a good overview of the location.
Figure 6 – West Lulworth aerial view
One last thing I did was map out the Lulworth high street and make notes on the building we see we would also count the steps along the high street. While counting the steps and walking up the high street we would mark on what we saw so we could get a rough estimate of the high street, this map I have made is then able to show me in the future what sort of changes Lulworth may have made. I could also be able to monitor things like litter bins, cafes, pubs, etc.
Data Presentation and Data Analysis/Interpretation
Figure 7 – Table of results of the visitors to Heritage Centre
Figure 8 – Graph of results from the visitors to the Heritage Centre
As you can see in Figure 8 over the 5 minute duration, women have had the highest number going into the Heritage Centre. Generally on average the same numbers of men go into the Heritage Centre every minute but pre dominantly it is the female gender that went into the heritage centre over the 5 minute period. If constantly it was the female gender going into the Heritage Centre at the highest rate it may tell me that on average females have more interest this facility more than males.
Figure 9 – Table of results from the Bi-Polar of Durdle Door
Figure 10 – Graph of the Bi-Polar of Durdle Door
Figure 11 – Table of result from the Bi-Polar of Stair Hole
Figure 12 – Graph of the Bi-Polar of Stair Hole
Figure 13 – Table of results from the Bi-polar of Lulworth Cove
Figure 14 – Graph of the Bi-Polar of Lulworth Cove
Figure 15 – Table of results of the Bi-Polar of the High Street
Figure 16 – Graph of the Bi-Polar of the High Street
Figure 17 – Table of results of the Bi-Polar of the Car Park
Figure 18 – Graph of the Bi-Polar of the Car Park
Figures 9 – 18 are all of my results of my Bi-Polar’s I have taken from around the Lulworth area. Each one of the Bi-Polar’s are similar in the fact that they all have high ratings, meaning that in each section (Litter, Dirtiness, Naturalness, Facilities and Noisiness) each area I have surveyed has been good at these. The fact that all of these areas have scored high marks is telling me that the council have got really good management of the region, and therefore making it the best as they can for the visitors to Lulworth. The lowest mark was given as a 3 at the Cark Park but taking all into consideration there is not a lot the council can do to reduce the noise pollution in this area, especially when there is so many tourists visiting the cove.
Figure 20 – Age of people questioned at Lulworth
Figure 21 – Pie chart of the age of people questioned at Lulworth
As you can see on figure 20, the age brackets of 10-20 and 50-60 are the most frequent people seen at Lulworth on that day. The reason for a higher number of younger children could be because at the time we were at Lulworth there were also other schools taking a field trip to Lulworth, so we encountered younger people a lot more frequently for this reason. We also saw a high number of older people at Lulworth between the ages of 50 and 60 this could be because the people we met are now retired and would like to take a day trip or wanting to spend a few nights away.
Figure 22 – Lulworth Cove Inn
Figure 23 – Table of where people have come from
Figure 24 – Pie chart of where people have come from
On Figures 23 and 24 you can see that only one tourist has come from the Dorset area to come and see Lulworth Cove, the rest have come from all over Britain and one Man even came from Colorado in America, this shows that it isn’t only the people living in the regions around Lulworth Cove that visit it is people from across the world. Majority of people had come from Bristol, but this is because there were many Chew Valley students in the area so it was more likely for us to question them.
Figure 25 – Map of the UK
Figure 26 – Table of question: has Lulworth has been well managed?
Figure 27 – Pie chart of question: has Lulworth has been well managed?
As shown here in figures 26 and 27 you can see that not one of the people I managed to interview believed that the area was poorly managed to create a balance between nature and the need of tourists. The main complaint about the area was that the car park was too expensive and that the price should be lowered or parking be made free, the people questioned also understood that a toll needs to be here because the council need it to pay for running costs of the village.
Figure 28 – Table of what type of trip was taken to Dorset?
Figure 29 – Pie chart of what type of trip was taken to Lulworth?
Figure 29 shows that one third of the people in Lulworth that were questioned we planning to stay one night in the area, this is probably older people who would like to get away for a weekend break as it was great weather and not too cold.
Conclusion
After thoroughly going through every aspect of the tourism management in Lulworth I believe that the council have managed the area in such a way that tourism and the natural environment can exist together. This is because when you look closely, you notice that they have though about the best materials to use and if they are really necessary. Although saying this I have only seen Lulworth on one particular day of the year so my theory may not be strictly true so to get a full understanding I may need to go back at different times of the year. I think our methods used were effective and reliable as they covered every topic and aspect to the best of our ability. The time in which we went to Lulworth was not peak tourist season which meant that our results may not be completely accurate. However, for the time of year we took our results, I think they are as accurate as we could have made them. One thing to improve on to get more accurate results would be to repeat these surveys and methods several times a year in different climates to get a wider range of results.
