We filled out answers on each of the different streets of Bourton-on-the-water and Charlbury, based on the headings above. We had to give a score for each of the categories A-F from 0 (very poor) to 10 (excellent). This was completely based on our own general knowledge of environmental standards and we filed the table in based on opinions. A summary of our results will be located in appendix 3.
When collecting our data, there were many deficits that we couldn’t avoid. These are
Survey
- Only 20 people were questioned at both locations. This relatively small sample may not represent the views of the whole populations of both visitors and residents. The responses provided therefore may be biased.
- Also these samples were taken at specific times of day, and all at different places. Therefore the answers given to us may not have reflected the views of the tourist and resident populations. For example the surveys were conducted on a Thursday, therefore the views of people who would have been at work at the time would have been unrepresented.
- The survey was also taken on an extremely wet and miserable day which may have reduced the number of tourists found in that given location at that point of day.
Tally of shops and services
- Given the time constraints and the nature of the weather conditions it is very difficult to be sure that the tally of shops and services represents an accurate reflection of the shops and services in both locations. To overcome this possible weakness individual tally sheets were checked with other groups. Whilst this would have cut out a great deal of error, it’s far from error proof.
Traffic counts
- Traffic counts were taken at certain points and at certain times of the day. They do not therefore reflect the true flows of traffic and consequent impact upon the environments studies. Very different results may have been gained if the counts had been conducted during a main holiday period or at a weekend when both places may experience more visitors. Also as the weather conditions were terrible; this may have restricted the amount of cars that went past, therefore this being another slight corruption of our data. Also the roads in which we conducted our traffic counts are located in with appendix 4.
- This type of survey is based on individual judgement. One person’s opinion on general appearance may be different from another’s. To overcome this kind of bias we compare individual opinions amongst the call to arrive at an overall assessment. It is however again worth noting that when we conducted the environmental assessment, it was made at a certain time of day, ( a very quiet period) and therefore may not offer a distorted impression. The environment may well deteriorate when visitor numbers in both areas increase, for example. There may be littler in summer than winter due to more tourists in summer.
Analysis of Results
To ensure I can analyse data correctly and appropriately I will use a sufficient amount that will enable me to draw conclusions from the comparison, to do this I will use data relevant to my hypothesis. I will present the data in a series of ways. Here is a table showing the amenities available
Tally of shops and services
Instead of plotting a graph with all of the shops and services, I have selected a few of the shops which I believe affect tourism and formatted the information into two separate pie charts. Here are two pie charts, (Bourton and Charlbury) with data I have selected with relevance to tourism, and also my hypothesis.
The confectioners and florist shops in Bourton are two classic shops which individually generally would be seen at to target the tourists. This is because these kinds of shops are capable of selling items which would greatly appeal to the tourists whereas the local villagers would just normally settle for the next possible alternative, which in this case would be a local supermarket. The shops that appeal to tourists are successful because they can increase their price and simply because tourists would not have anywhere else to buy the items they are almost forced into buying it at generally speaking, a price considered to be over the normal price by locals. Therefore these authentic classic shops mainly target their sale at tourists.
Also from looking at the graph we can see that there are 8 café’s in Bourton and there is only 1 in Charlbury, this tells us that Bourton must have a larger target audience, reason behind all of the eight shops surviving in Bourton, however from looking at the populations we can see that there is only a difference of 400 people however there is eight café’s in Bourton and only one in Charlbury therefore suggesting that the tourist population contribute to the upkeep of these cafés on Bourton by buying things from them. Charlbury only has one café because it is a quiet little commuter town and isn’t visited by tourists. Also the villagers of Charlbury are more likely to eat snacks, dinner and lunches and get drinks at home opposed to eating in a café, this being because it is less money consuming.
In Bourton-on-the-water there are four fish and chip shops, typical English snacks and in such a place like Bourton the shops will get the customers they need because tourists who are foreign will jump at the chance to try some characteristically British food. Therefore on the other hand people who are actually British may not be so keen on buying this type of meal probably because they either tried it and disliked it, or have decided to go home for something to eat. There is only one fish and chip shop in Charlbury, this is the market for a fish and chip shop isn’t large enough to cope with more than one. This would be because there are no tourists to purchase this kind of food.
In Bourton there are ten tourist related shops which sell all the kinds of things, tourist would be looking to take home, such as postcards and souvenirs. Things like these are bought for people back home and for them to look back upon to remember such a beautiful place like Bourton-on-the-water. They are tourist related because hardly any, if any at all villagers would purchase from that shops, simply because they live in the town.
A camera shop would survive and is in a place like Bourton, because tourists purchase cameras and films so that they can take pictures of some of the picturesque views of the spectacular Cotswold’s, however as there are no tourists in Charlbury such a shop is not necessary as it wouldn’t be targeting the tourists.
Clothes shops in Bourton can be related to tourism because, as weather in all countries differs, the majority of people may come from hot countries and may not have prepared for the shock of the British climate. Therefore such a shop would be critical to ensure that the tourists had the right clothes for the weather.
A lot of tourists visiting Bourton is good because it keeps the economy of the place high, and creates many job vacancies in the shops. As stated by Taylor, “increased job opportunities are a positive impact of tourism” From looking at this statistical data, we can begin to see how my hypothesis will be correct or not. Another quotation taken from the great geographer Taylor states that “Overcrowding makes it difficult for locals to use and enjoy the facilities in the area” By this he means that is the tourist population of a place is high and people begin to feel crowded then locals will find it difficult to use their home towns facilities and this results in the locals shopping elsewhere and the area relying on the tourist population to help keep their economic status high. Therefore this relates and supports my hypothesis no. 1 which says that “Tourism has affected the goods and services available at Bourton-on-the-water”
Question 6 in the survey
This question asked the interviewee what interested them in coming to Bourton on the water, here is a table below with the results.
Looking at this table we can see what people in Bourton did or were planning on doing in the allocated time they were staying there, it shows that 2 of the people were going or wanted to go to the Museum, 2 people wanting to go shopping, and two other people wanting to either view oncoming events or view Bourtons natural beauty.
It was un-necessary to put a table in for the results of Charlbury because we id not encounter any visitors for which question 6 was aimed at. Therefore it suggests that Charlbury is not affected by visitors.. Therefore we can say that the shops built in Bourton have been intentionally built for the tourist and again backing up my hypothesis 1 which states “Tourism has affected the goods and services available at Bourton-on-the-water”
Question 10 in the Survey
Looking at this table we can see what local shops and services the 15 tourists we asked intended on using. It shows the intended using a variety of shops and services. As this question is for visitors and the answers are in large number it will be inevitable that the shops/services would get busier. An immediate response to this would be shops increasing their prices. As stated earlier tourists have no choice on what they pay for an item, the price they will be paying is more likely to be over-priced but still affordable, by doing this shops will increase profit margins and product value. This change would have affected the shops as prices have been raised and shops will be generating more income. One local said that tourists come and buy things in his shop so tourism must affect that shop individually, but only that shop.
Question 8 in the Survey
For this we asked if the visitor was staying overnight and if so where abouts. The responses given were that 5 were staying in an overnight they most probably would’ve stayed in a B&B or hotel; this is relevant information to link to hypothesis 1 which states “Tourism has affected the goods and services available at Bourton-on-the-water”
As well as collecting data, we had to go around Bourton-on-the-water and Charlbury and assess the Environmental Quality. Our recordings were our own opinions based on our general knowledge on environmental quality; we came to a group decision on both of the environments.
Environmental Quality in Bourton
Environmental Quality in Charlbury
Looking at the results, it tells us that Charlbury had a better environment quality overall, but it wasn’t as tidy as Bourton-on-the-water and the general appearance of the place wasn’t as good as Bourtons. Factors behind these reasons are that Bourton may keep the town nice and clean as an attraction to the tourists, whereas as Charlbury has none it may not be so keen on keeping it so tidy.
Parking in Bourton is a real problem as we can see, this may be simply down to the populations of each town or may be influenced by tourist cars and coaches containing tourists, however without a sufficient amount of data, I am unable to draw conclusions for this and this may lead to a deficit in the accuracy of my final conclusion. As Bourton has a lot more traffic than Charlbury more fumes and emissions are given into the atmosphere this making the environmental quality a lot worse. It will certainly also add noise pollution to the environment. If the case be that tourist’s cars and coaches are adding to the traffic then certainly the environmental quality would be affected.
Here are my traffic survey results in Bourton and Charlbury
Key:
Charlbury: BLUE-Amount of vehicles in 9, Amount of vehicles out 6
Bourton: RED-Amount of vehicles in 26, Amount of vehicles out 13.
This shows for the ten minute duration timed, Bourton had a lot more traffic than Charlbury, even with the weather conditions being bad at Bourton and rather nice at Charlbury. With more traffic in Bourton then Charlbury, Bourton will consequently have more noise and air pollution than Charlbury and the roads will be more dangerous, not just to car drivers but pedestrians also. Another quotation taken from Taylor states “all sorts of transport can have negative impact on the environment. Bikes and pedestrians cause erosion of paths and traffic causes pollution and fuel consumption”
Also the environmental quality survey shows, there was more noise and traffic danger in Bourton and there was less parking, this is because of the large levels of traffic in Bourton. Charlbury had better parking conditions and the noise and traffic was less, these are most likely because of there being no tourists in that area.
Question 4 of the survey
In this question we asked visitors if they had encountered any problems due to tourism from the list below which was;
- Littler
- Overcrowding
- Parking
- Noise
- Theft/crime
- Others
Of the five people that responded to the question, from looking at this pie chart we can see that 3 people said parking was a problem and 2 people said over crowding was problem. Both of these relate to the environmental quality problem, parking problems because of the high numbers of traffic. Knowing that overcrowding was an issue as I said earlier Taylor said that “Overcrowding makes it difficult for locals to use and enjoy the facilities in the area” then shops will have been designed to target the tourists. This supports both hypothesis 1 and 2. When asking locals in Charlbury problems caused by tourism, there were no responses.
Question 9 of the survey
In this question it says, how would you rate the environment of Bourton-on-the-water compared to other places you have visited? Answers available were;
- Very Favourable
- Favourable
- Poorly
- Very poorly
Here is a pie chart which displayed the answers given
This pie chart shows us that from all of the people sampled, all of them favoured Bourton compared to other areas of the Cotswold, 5 of the people asked rated the environment as favourably and 10 people rated it very favourable, this makes the town seem very visitor friendly and this is another relative point to add to my hypothesis as a way of how the environmental quality has changed because of tourism.
Our final question of the questionnaire was, have you encountered any problems in your visit? Answers to these were;
- litter
- overcrowding
- Parking
- Noise
- Theft and crime
- Others
Here is another pie chart which shows us some of the responses;
This pie chart shows us the problems encountered by visitors in Bourton, as we can see the majority of the visitors said none, this may be because some of the visitors we asked may have just arrived and had not been able to look in depth at possible problems. However there was 1 who said Parking and 2 who said overcrowding.
Analysis
From looking back at the previous questionnaire on the locals of the area, these are the same problems that arise. Overcrowding was mentioned and so was parking problems. The problems arise due to the large amount of tourists visiting that area and either hiring cars out or taking coaches to reach Bourton, thus backing up my hypothesis 2. Which is Tourism affects the quality of the environment in Bourton and Charlbury. The environmental side of the problem isn’t just a problem for itself as Taylor states “Overcrowding makes it difficult for locals to use and enjoy the facilities in the area” he also goes onto say “increased wear and tear of the fabric of buildings or the countryside can be caused by the volume of visitors. Large increases in the number s lead to pressure for new developments and problems can arise if these facilities are out of keeping with the setting” Quotations like these, extracted from Taylor Leisure and Tourism definitely back up my hypothesis that overcrowding definitely affects the environmental quality of a place, and also back up my other hypothesis which is Tourism has affected the environmental quality of Bourton-on-the-water.
Evaluation
When evaluating my results, I can look upon results which can and may be improved. Here are a few suggestions to recommend how my Study could be improved.
- Questioning a larger sample of people at both locations and ensuring that the sample was constructed to represent the views of the whole population as accurately as possible. This will ensure that the results reflect the views of the populations of tourists and visitors in both towns. The surveys could be conducted at different times of the day to make sure the views of tourists are properly represented, and at different times of the day to ensure the views of all residents are reflected
- I could’ve carried out traffic counts at different times and days and at a number of different places. This will ensure that the impact of cars on both locations is accurately assessed. There are electronic traffic sensors that could be installed to record the number of cars passing a certain point continuously.
- An accurate tally of businesses could be gained by using local business directories. This would then enable an accurate assessment of the number of businesses in both locations that are targeted at tourists. This would then enable a survey to be carried out to find out the number of businesses such businesses employed. This information could be used to assess the impact of tourism on the economy of the area.
- The environmental survey could be improved by measuring it at a variety of different times to ascertain if it deteriorates as a result of tourism. The environment could be compared with a greater variety of non-tourist and tourist towns to assess the precise impact of tourism on environmental quality.
To conclude, after analyzing all of the data and drawing conclusion it would be fair to say that my hypothesis in this case have been proven to be right, however if I could gain more sufficient detailed data, then I’m not so sure that this would be the case, so I can finally say that from comparing Bourton-on-the-water to Charlbury by the amounts of data collected, the two conclusions drawn from the assessed information, proven to be correct by geographical theory and practice are;
- Tourism has affected the goods and services available at Bourton-on-the-water.
- Tourism has affected the environmental quality of Bourton-on-the-water.
