Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
key destinations (D.G.Pearce 1995a) and more recent analysis of VisitScotland data at a
regional level by Page (2003a) to assess the regional distribution of coach tourist visits in
Scotland. At the micro level, studies of specific areas such as small islands may yield
contained environments where spatial analysis is much easier and the effects of tourist
activity can be monitored. For example, in 2003, the former First World War battle site of
Ieper in Belgium (Ypres in French) attracted around 350,000 visitors a year, 50 per cent
of whom were British and 50 per cent of these were children studying the history of the
First World War. At least 20 per cent of the British visitors had a family link to the war
and it has generated a tourism boom at the local level among businesses.
At a methodological level, it is evident that where government agencies and other
public sector organisations undertake data collection of domestic tourism, 'the results are
not often directly comparable, limiting the identification of general patterns and trends'
(D.G.Pearce 1995a:67). For this reason, the innovative research undertaken by D.G.
Pearce (1993b) is worthy of attention here since it comprises one of the few systematic
analysis of domestic tourism in a country, which in this case is New Zealand. As Pearce
(1995a) rightly acknowledges,
there are still few examples of comprehensive interregional studies where
the analysis is based on a complete matrix of both original and destination
regions…[since] few appropriate and reliable sets of tourism statistics
exist which might be used to construct such a matrix.
(D.G.Pearce 1995a:67)
Nationwide surveys are undertaken which are weighted to reflect the population base.
One of the few comprehensive studies which yielded an origin-destination matrix is the
somewhat dated New Zealand Domestic Travel Survey (NZDTS), established in 1983
(New Zealand Tourism Board 199la) and later updated.
NEW ZEALAND DOMESTIC TOURISM SURVEY
Domestic tourism data are harder to collect than those for international visitors, simply
because no frontiers are crossed or formal registers required. Domestic travel estimates
can thus be made only by factoring up from representative surveys of the population. As
with all surveys, sample size and representativeness are critical, so that a manageable
(and affordable) sample size of a thousand or so will give reasonably accurate figures for
national trends but is useless at a regional level.
Scale and significance of New Zealand domestic travel
The domestic travel surveys of the 1980s carried out by the New Zealand Travel and
Publicity Department (NZTP) were based on a sample of 12,000 interviews. This gave
confidence limits of ± 0.9 per cent at the 95 per cent level and so were extremely reliable
for national estimates. Even so, the authors of the research noted that potential error
limits increase very quickly as sample sizes reduce and particular care should be taken in
interpreting results for small subgroups of the sample. They went on to remind us that
Search WWH ::




Custom Search