Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
willingness to record information accurately declined towards the end of the week
(Patmore 1983). However, pioneering research by Glyptis (198la) used a diary technique
which examined a sample of 595 visitors to the countryside. Respondents kept a diary
record spanning three days and five evenings, recording the dominant pursuit in half-hour
periods. While respondents identified up to 129 different leisure activities, each cited an
average of 11. The value of the study was that through the use of cluster analysis to
statistically analyse the sample and to group the population, it identified the leisure
lifestyles of respondents with distinct groupings, where people of different social classes
engaged in similar activities.
Tourism time budgets
In tourism studies, this technique has been used to provide a systematic record of a
person's use of time over a given period, typically for a short period ranging from a
single day to a week (D.G.Pearce 1988a; Debbage 1991). One of the fundamental
assumptions in using this research method is that tourist behaviour and activities are the
result of choices, a point illustrated by Floor (1990). Pearce (1987c) argues that there has
been a comparative neglect of tourist activities by tourist researchers, compounded by the
lack of available data. Where questionnaire surveys have addressed such issues, the
results have often failed to provide a comprehensive assessment of tourist activities, both
formal/ informal and the relative importance of each. Thrift (1977) provides an
assessment of three principal constraints on tourists' daily activity patterns, which are:
•
comparability constraints
(e.g. the biologically based need for food and sleep)
•
coupling constraints
(e.g. the need to interact and undertake activities with other
people)
•
authority constraints
(e.g. where activities are controlled, not allowed or permitted at a
certain point in time).
Thus both Chapin (1974) and Thrift (1977) identify choices and constraints which will
influence the specific activities and context of tourist daily activities, which has
similarities with the leisure constraints literature discussed earlier. The use of time
budgets via diaries to record tourists activity patterns has been used in a number of
contexts as research by Gaviria (1975), Cooper (1981), P.L. Pearce (1981), D.G.Pearce
(1986) and Debbage (1991) indicates. Methodological issues raised by these studies
highlight the problem of selecting appropriate temporal measures to record tourists'
activities. P.L.Pearce (1981) used three main time periods (morning, afternoon and
evening) with Gaviria (1975) selecting quarter-hour periods and Cooper (1981) using five
time sequences. While the recording of activities by time is a demanding activity for
tourists, D.G.Pearce (1986) argues that the main methodological concerns for such
surveys are the type of technique to be used, the period to be covered and the type of
sample selected. In addition, Chapin (1974) argues that such studies can choose to use
three main survey techniques as follows:
•
a checklist technique,
where respondents select the list of activities they engage in from
a precategorised list
•
the yesterday technique,
where subjects are asked to list things they did the previous
day, where and when they did them
