Investigate the attractions of Dawlish and the effects that tourism has on the town.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The main aim of my enquiry is to investigate the attractions of Dawlish and the effects that tourism has on the town. Seaside resorts have different kinds of attractions, both physical and human, and the effects can be very varied. For example a physical attraction of Dawlish is the sandy beaches this effects the town in a mostly social way because it brings new people into the town, it also effects the town in an economical way because it mans that people spend money in the town raising it's economy. This area of Devon is quite seasonal and I think that the season effects the type of visitor for example in the summer families with younger children may visit where as in the spring older generations may take walks along the seaside, but the area can be enjoyed all year round.

We choose to study this area of England for lots of reasons. It's close by so if anyone needs to go back to collect more information they don't have to travel a long way, because it close it means that most of us know a little about it anyway so it makes the research easier. We know the area is a tourist resort because we live close to it and therefore it fits the criteria of our coursework. We know some of the background of the town for example we know it has won a seaside award so it must be a tourist area. The area around Dawlish has lots of National parks for example Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the area is also near to the regional capital Exeter so that would bring in more tourists. As you can see in the below map of the surrounding area:

Found at www.lonelyplanet.com/maps

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

AVG.MAX

8*C

8*C

0*C

2*C

6*C

9*C

21*C

21*C

8*C

4*C

1*C

9*C

AVG.MIN

3*C

3*C

4*C

4*C

7*C

1*C

2*C

2*C

0*C

8*C

5*C

4*C

MEAN

6*C

6*C

7*C

8*C

2*C

4*C

7*C

7*C

4*C

1*C

8*C

7*C

The table shows the temperatures for the town of Dawlish during 2003 it was found at "http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather www.bbc.co.uk/weather.

This is a map showing the site of Dawlish in relation to the other town's surrounding it. It was found at www.southdevon.com

Insert map 2

My predictions are:

* Why do people come to Dawlish? - Beaches, sea, cheap holidays,

* The town will be busiest in mid-summer,

* The locals will find it hard to park in tourist areas,

* The shops will mostly be tourist based,

* Mostly families and the elderly will visit Dawlish,

* The type of visitor will vary with the seasons.

The map below also shows that Dawlish has a good road network, which makes it easier for tourists to get to:

Insert map 6

THE HISTORY OF DAWLISH

Part Victorian and part Georgian, and part older still, the seaside town of Dawlish has a special charm and character. At its heart is an attractive park with an avenue of mature chestnut trees, colourful flower beds, tall palms, giant cacti, and other exotic plants, all providing a perfect setting for a stream which cascades over a series of waterfalls all the way to the sea. The brook provides a home for black swans and many species of waterfowl. 'The Lawn' is a popular and safe environment for family games during the day, and at night hundreds of coloured lights transforms it to a magical place for a summer evening stroll.

The whole of Dawlish is too large to sample in the time provided therefore sample areas need to be chosen, we chose the area because of previous knowledge of Dawlish, where attractions are situated, it is near the tourist information board, near to the sea, near the arcades, we extended the sample area to the suburbs so that we could contrast it with the town centre where we expect the most tourist attractions would be. We chose simple transect lines along roads so that it was easy to follow and it depends how much time we have how far we will follow the transect line.

Dawlish is set on the edge of beautiful rolling countryside as it meets the impressive cliffs of the South Devon coastline. There are three beaches; Boat Cove, Coryton Cove and the main beach that stretches all the way to Dawlish Warren.

Dawlish is relaxing, but never sleepy! A packed programme of free entertainment and events are arranged on or around the bandstand throughout the summer. There are many shops, cafes, inns and restaurants in the town and its has a range of attractions including boat trips and fishing trips, a theatre, museum, obstacle golf, and art gallery. There is a swimming pool and mini-golf at the local leisure centre and a bowling green on the Lawn.

The town of Dawlish is near to the regional Capital Exeter. The area we walked is shown on Figure 1, which is a map of Dawlish town centre. It shows the route we walked in blue and areas of interest for the project in orange. You can see from the map that the route we walked goes close to most of the tourist areas.

Figure 2 shows the area of Dawlish in less detail and shows it in relation to the surrounding area and in particular Teignmouth. It shows the surrounding tourist attractions well such as woods and these are highlighted in orange.

Figure 3 shows Dawlish in more detail and on this map our main areas of interest are marked in yellow, the orange highlighted area is our route.

Site is the exact location of a settlement for example in the case of Dawlish it was probably selected for settlement because it was close to the sea so there was always a source of food, it has quite a flat relief that means that it is high enough to avoid flooding but low enough to be sheltered from the wind, it has a clean water supply via Dawlish waters, it has a nearby wood to provide fuel, it has fertile sandy loam soil form the Permian Sandstone area and because it is on the coast transport to other town s by water would be easy and access to Dawlish made easier for other townspeople.

The situation is the location of a settlement in regards to the surrounding area. A settlement with good access to natural resources and other settlement will grow in size. Settlements with the best situations grow into cities as you can see from the locations of towns on the map on the next page:

Insert map 3

Dawlish is a good location for this investigation because of the natural and physical features of the area. For example a Natural feature of the area is the sandy beaches and a Human feature of the area is the train station.

Before we went to Dawlish we laid out a sequence of events that we were going to follow first we collected our data on the 13th of May 2003 this is significant because it means that we collected the data right at the beginning of the season so maybe not many tourists were in the area or maybe a lot were for example if it was a bank holiday.

We decided before we went that the whole of Dawlish was too big to sample, as we didn't have time so instead we chose a sample of the town near to the sea. We chose the samples because most of the attractions we knew would be near to the beach as this is where tourists flock to, also the area we chose was near to the tourist information shop, the main roads in and out of Dawlish and the arcades. We felt that most businesses interested in tourism would set up near to the beach and so most of our sample was directed here. How far we go out will depend on how much time we had. The area we sampled was close to the train station and bus route. The origin of Dawlish comes from its history as a spa town and than when the Victorians came when the railway was built. The impacts and effects of tourism can be seen in the list below:

Environmental damage,

Pollution,

Economy,

Types of shops,

Increase in carnivals and activities,

Lots of arcades,

More car parks-fuller,

Better transport system-railway.

The techniques we are going to use to collect our primary data is seen in figure 6 below:

TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

Photo's

Sketches

Land-use mapping

Parking-location/capacity/reg. Plates

Environmental survey

Bi-picular survey/very clean +2/clean +1/dirty -1/very dirty -2

Congestion-pedestrian count

Secondary data-tourist information centre, bus time tables, library

The secondary data will also be collected when we do our extension work, which I have not done yet.

With the data we will compile graphs and work out what the effects are on Dawlish caused by tourism.
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In the future for my extension I would like to do the same sort of study on the attractions for tourists and effects on Bath, this is because I would like to compare to tourist areas of which one is by the coast and one that is far away from the coast. Also the origins of both Dawlish and Bath are as spa towns for wealthy Georgians to come and drink the water, then in the late 1800's a railway was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and it brought the Victorians to the town and a resort was ...

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