Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6 Percentages of
completeness and consistency
of WCTFS by day travel
directions
that during the latter part of the itineraries, tourists tend to stop less frequently.
On the way home, tourists might be reluctant to fill the diaries but the events are
comparatively clearer in their minds which result in better data quality.
3.2.2 Temporal Patterns of Gaps and Errors
Events close to temporal boundaries are easier for respondents to recall (Lynn
et al.
2005
): the closer that the event being recorded is to its actual occurrence, the
easier the recall and the greater the likely accuracy of response. Any lag may also
have an impact on the recalled vividness of the tourist's impression, as may the
time during the day that the event is experienced, or recorded, and other experi-
ences that may have intervened. Various factors have a psychological effect on
tourists' recall abilities and these may be related to time of occurrence and time of
recording. The actual performance in a specific case may depend on the instrument
used (diary or interview) and, at least for the diary, the respondent's choice of
timing to achieve completion of the survey paperwork. Whatever the cause of
delay, there are patterns of gaps and errors in the survey dataset related to temporal
dynamics. It is also expected that there are some general regularities in perfor-
mance related to recall factors.
Figure
7
addresses some of these issues, with Fig.
7
a illustrating variations in
quality levels related to the relative timing of an event during the whole itinerary.
This is done by percentage of completed temporal events by complete travel days
during the itineraries. As can be seen, the stops on the second day of the trip have
the highest level of completion of temporal events, after which the percentages
keep declining until day seven with the value going up again but dropping down
again at day eight.
This summary does not look at the whole itineraries, rather examining the
temporal events within the general travel day information. The basic stance is that
