I think the reason for this is that there is not such a need as before to use them because before if you had to take some information to another country u used to have to take it in the form of a carbon copy and now u can just email it to them which is much quicker
6. The location of Bewdley in the U.K.
Bewdley is a market town originally built for its strategic bridging point across the river seven it is situated in the county of Worcestershire which has a population of around 5400 people.
Bewdley south west of Birmingham and west of Kidderminster
Bewdley is easily accessible off The M5, M42 and the M6
These are all beneficial factors to its sphere of affluence some attractions are the seven valley railway, and the west midlands safari park.
7. Annotated Maps
Section2 - Methodology
Questionnaire
The aim is to find out the views on local people and tourists at a specific time and place using the questionnaire.
Environmental survey
This survey will be my judgment of six places and will have six different headings:
- Air pollution
- Noise pollution
- Vandalism
- Pavement condition
- Traffic congestion
- Litter pollution
There will be a scale of +5 to -5 to show if it is bad (-5) or good (+5)
Litter count
The litter count will show the pollution in a 1metre square at our 6 locations. The results will be recorded on a table.
Photographs
The idea is to produce a gallery of pictures on the effect of tourism on Bewdley. I will also annotate each photograph.
Land use survey
This survey will establish the variety of land uses in Bewdley example: tourist, residential, retail and industrial on an A3 map of Bewdley. Each group will split in half and will walk up each side of the road and record the land uses. These will be color coded to show different land uses and put onto a map.
Tax disk survey
The main use of the survey will be to collect data about the sphere of influence for Bewdley. We will survey 20 different car tax disks in the main car park of Bewdley to find out where the tax disk was registered. The location of the post office from there it was registered will tell us were the car has come from therefore we can work out the distance it has traveled. We can use this to find out the range of Bewdley’s sphere of influence.
Pedestrian count
This survey will show if there is any overpopulation in certain areas and will identify any main flows of people. This survey will be done straight after the traffic count and will last for 10 minutes. The pedestrian count will be split into Male and Female.
Traffic Count
This is so we can see were the main traffic areas are, and the main possible places of congestion. Groups of pupils will be given 4 different locations:
- Westgate
- High street
- Dog lane
- Severnside/Load street
The groups will split into two different sections and one will count the different modes of traffic leaving Bewdley, and the other section will count the different modes of traffic entering Bewdley. Each count will last for 10 minutes and will be taken three times in 6 hours at 2 hour gaps. Results will be recorded on a tally chart and recorded later into a collection of results.
Section 3
These are the traffic count graphs for 10:00
The next six graphs will be the traffic counts for 12:00
The last six Traffic count graphs and these are for 2:00
Section 4
Data Analysis
For all of the tests that were carried out we used 6 locations in Bewdley centre. These were Dog Lane, High street, Riverside North, Park Lane Welsh Gate and Severnside. These were the results I found in my investigation.
Traffic Count
These counts were carried out on the same day as the pedestrian count. These counts were carried out 10 minutes before the pedestrian count at 10am, 12pm and 2pm also lasting for 10 minutes. At 10am the greatest number of vehicles entering Bewdley was at Severnside and the least was at Park Lane. The Main type of vehicles was cars because more people have cars than have busses or Lorries. At t 12pm the main location for vehicles was joint between Riverside north and Severnside and the least was at park Lane yet again. So for the last traffic count at 2pm the busiest site was Severnside and the quietest was Park Lane. So the Busiest time is at 12pm but the amount of cars doesn’t affect Bewdley as a tourist destination. The results also show that Park Lane is the quietest park of Bewdley in terms of amount of cars on the road.
Environmental survey
In the Environmental survey we collected data from the 6 locations we had picked to work at. The Cleanest place according to our results was severnside. The Worst location was park lane.
Land Use Map
We had a map of Bewdley and we found out what each building was used for including Food and Drink, Clothing, Residential and so on. We coloured each building a certain colour depending on what it was used as.
Pedestrian Count
We found out that it is possible to compare the number of people entering and exiting Bewdley at a certain point. We did these counts at 1010am, 1210pm and 210pm which lasted for 10 minutes each. The main gender of pedestrians that entered and left Bewdley was Female. At 1210 the biggest numbers of people were at Severnside which was site 2. In Bewdley the main gender of people were female over all.
Tax Disc Survey
The car disc survey shows us the sphere of influence of Bewdley. Most of the people that had bought cars were from Kidderminster with the next highest proportion coming from Bridge north I think this is because Bridge north is the next town along the river seven. Next were Bewdley and Stourbridge. They were few people that came from places such as Wolverhampton and Harborne. From the data it shows that Bewdley has a limited sphere of influence. As a result it shows us that people don’t travel a huge distance to visit Bewdley and it is from mainly a close place where people go for a day trip.
Litter Count
The litter count was so we could see where in Bewdley pollution was highest and lowest in the 6 areas were were looking at. The site we found with least litter was Park Lane and the lowest was at Severnside. They were little litter at all 6 sites which indicate that Bewdley is a clean place with not much pollution from people which is good for the town.
Questionnaire responses
We asked a few people to do our Questionnaires while we were there. One person made a comment saying it needs places for young people to go which I agree with as there seems little to keep youth entertained. From our finding we found out that the average age of people in Bewdley was 50-60, and where employed. People told us that they were in Bewdley mostly for work or to shop. Most of there people we asked visited Bewdley everyday and thought they had average facilities.
Section 5
EVALUATION
Reliability of methods and accuracy of results
I think that I have collected enough data to understand Bewdley. If I had more time there then I could collected more data which would have let me broaden my research so Id have a better idea about Bewdley. I could have found out more about the main congestion times of Bewdley and when it’s most populated.
I think the main disadvantage was that we only had a small amount of time for each activity so our results are quite basic. With more times recorded and more places we could have analyzed the results better. I think that our results within the time aloud was good however I do not think that we got an accurate reading on tourism because we went in the day time which means most people would be at work. We also went during the term time meaning it was not a good time for tourism. When we recorded the traffic we only did for ten minutes and this was not long enough because we should have done it in rush hour however we did not have the time to do this so we couldn’t.
If I was going to repeat what I did it would have to be in the summer so rain wouldn’t keep people away from Bewdley and so children are not at school and can visit there family too. If we could have used technology it would have been easier to record the results and would have been more accurate. If the tests were carried out throughout a year then you could see the difference between things that happen in winter and summer. The day seemed a little rushed so they may be a few mistakes in the results.
Accuracy of results
The results we took were most likely accurate because we only had a short amount of time so they is less time for us to make any errors. The methods we used had to be used as there wasn’t much time so we had few other options on how to find out things which meant it was going to be as accurate as possible. If it was for a longer time then we would have to improve our methods to eliminate errors.
I think the amount of time that we had to get the results down on paper was not enough but that was because of our travelling times which restricted out actual time in Bewdley.
Validity of Conclusions
All of my conclusions have proved my hypothesis right that tourism doesn’t have a negative effect on Bewdley, in fact it has an Economic welfare on Bewdley which helps the town. So the negatives compared with the positives are far greater leaning towards the positive side really which makes tourism a good thing for Bewdley. Tourism will be a good place for villages and towns that a similar in England and other countries but can not be sure of it due to the different lifestyle so it will make it seem like a completely different experience. These result I have got may not reflect Bewdley as a whole because we was only there for one day with the tax disc because someone who actually does live in Bewdley may have got the car from else where and the tax disc may still be the same so it isn’t the definite place or where the person is from.
With the traffic count some people were just passing though bewdley to make there way to somewhere else so it doesn’t all show about the tourism of the village its shows it’s useful for people to get from one place to another. If I did the investigation again I think they would have to be a few changes which include spending a longer period of time and to do it at more points around Bewdley so we knew what the whole town was like and not just 6 bits of it but overall it was a good test and we found out a lot about tourism in Bewdley.
Closing Statement
This coursework has increased my ability in certain tasks such as data handling, presentation and analysis. I have also improved my computer skills and to take observation on my surrounds. During this we didn’t really look at the positives that tourism brings to Bewdley even though it out weighs out any negative tourism brings to the town. The data we collected didn’t distinguish locals from tourists which doesn’t help us find out about just tourism but it is still useful to know about everyone in Bewdley. Tourism doesn’t have a negative effect on any place in the world it brings in money to local business which helps the village. So tourism doesn’t have a negative impact on Bewdley.
