I believe it is possible to do fairly unusual things with statistics, after last weeks story that tourism had risen in Thanet between 2003 and 2006 I managed to obtain the local tourist information office enquiry figures for some of that period. They make interesting reading, they appear to say that in 2003 over 1,000 people a week were visiting the Ramsgate office and in 2006 about 150 people a week were visiting the Ramsgate office.Anyone who knows the Ramsgate office will be aware that throughout this period it has been situated where tourists would be very unlikely to find it.
One assumes that it would be busier in the summer and not unreasonable to have 2,000 visitors a week at peak times, I believe it is open about five days a week, so or 400 people a day, that’s about 1 a minute.
The summer of 2006 was pretty fine compared to 2007 and there was still some attempt to run a village fair on Dreamland with a wheel that then disappeared. With the general disbelief about stats, can we really belive that TC Mark 2 will attract a further 150,000 extra visitors?
ReplyDeleteBertie the thing that concerns me here is that the figures are just not realistic and that the council are using these figures to make decisions about our leisure economy.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that these council produced figures are obviously fictitious makes me suspicious of other statistics that they produce too.
Anyone got any ideas how to get the figures for the rest of 2006 and 2007?
The TIC in Broadstairs used to be in the High Street but was moved to the Dickens Museum some time ago. It is rarely open due to 'lack of staff' so anyone who a) finds it and b) wants to use it will have problems. The Ramsgate one is a joke, tucked away off York Street.
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