Bosham Neighbourhood Plan
Bosham Neighbourhood Plan
Visitor Theme: First draft report on initial visitor survey
Richard Evans. 21 Aug 2013
The Visitor Theme working group (Douglas & Jill McGregor, Fiona Macfarlane, Val and Richard Evans) carried out an initial visitor survey on Sunday 18th Aug 2013. The date was chosen as being representative of a weekend in summer school holidays.
127 questionnaires were completed, representing about 420 visitors. It is estimated to represent a sample size of about 30%, which is considerably higher than needed for statistical reliability.
Some of the figures given below will be subject to revision in later drafts as the analyses are developed further. A future draft probably needs a summary as well.
Who visits Bosham
On a summer holiday weekend families with children under 18 account for a third of the total number of visitors. There are often 2 or 3 families in one group.
Groups of friends make up the second largest % of visitors – at approaching a third.
Although couples make up almost half the groups completing the questionnaire, they account for only about a quarter of the total number of people visiting (because they are outweighed by larger families and groups of friends). Almost half of the couples are retired. We would expect retired couples to make up a very much larger proportion of visitors during autumn, winter and spring and it is our intention to do several smaller surveys to ascertain whether this is true.
Families without children under 18 make up only 12% of the groups.
On this particular day (which was partly cloudy and fairly windy) groups of teenagers/20 year olds made up only a tiny % of visitors. But residents observe that their number increase sharply on hot, sunny days – on which days they are particular occupants of Quay Meadow and the Quay (following the time honoured pastime of ‘Quay jumping’.
Where from
Approaching half the groups are visiting from more than 50 miles away.
Roughly a quarter have come 12-50 miles and roughly another quarter 12 miles or less - with a final 5% staying in the village.
About 5% of the visitors were from abroad - from the USA, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Bulgaria and Switzerland. In most cases they were here either visiting friends/family or attending a wedding.
How long a visit
An important finding of the survey is that over three quarters of visitor groups were spending only part of the day in Bosham. (Which is not all that surprising given that old part of the village can be walked around in an hour or so and there are only a limited number of things to see or do). In comparison visitors to, say, West Wittering are likely to spend the whole day there.
Only 8% said they were staying for the day. And a further 15% were staying in the village or immediate locality.
Type of accommodation
Well over half of the visitors were on a one day trip from home and so didn’t complete this section of the questionnaire. Of those who did, around 60% were staying with family and friends
30% were staying in an hotel with another 8% caravanning or camping. Around 5 % were in B&B or self catering. There were no boat visitors.
Getting to Bosham
Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of visitors (90%) came here by car.
About 7% came here by bike or walking, 1% by rail, and none by boat, motor bike or scooter ( there were several motor bikes parked on Shore Road but the survey didn’t capture them). One or two people came by local bus or taxi.
On the day of the survey there was only one coach visiting. On another day there are sometimes several coaches – and of course one coach carrying perhaps 50 people can contribute a significant number to the total visitor count.
Parking
On the day of the survey, 76% over those arriving by car had parked in the car park and 8% on Shore Road. However, it was high tide during the first half of the time when the survey was being carried out (10.30 to 3.00). So the 8% parking on Shore Road all parked from around 1.00 onwards. On a day where low tide was around midday we would expect a much higher proportion of cars to be parked on Shore Road.
It’s worth noting that 16% of cars were parked ‘elsewhere’ – which includes the Millstream car park and also the roads generally in the centre of Bosham.
Frequency of visits
The survey makes it very clear that Bosham gets’ a very high proportion of repeat visitors with getting on for half coming here several times a year and a further quarter come annually or every few years
29% of visitor groups were on their 1st visit
How they discovered Bosham
Well over half (57%) of visitors got to hear about Bosham through friends and family – ie word of mouth.
Just on a third got their information from the AA Guide, leaflets and other miscellaneous sources – including, rather intriguingly, some works of fiction ! (Which raises the question – what would happen to visitor numbers if Bosham were to be a location featured in a movie or TV series ?)
A small percentage heard about Bosham through the media or the web – and none from a travel agent. (We failed to ask about tourist information offices)
Activities whilst in Bosham
The common pattern is that almost everyone takes a stroll round the central area of the village taking in a number places. Visitors were asked what particular places they are visiting – revealing the popularity of the Trippet/Shore Road as a place to amble and that of the Quay as somewhere to watch the general antics on or in the water. Around 60% visit a café or the pub. Rather more than half visit the Craft Centre and just on half visit the Church.
About half walked around or stopped for a while Quay Meadow. From observations of the numbers on the meadow, the proportion who stopped for any length of time was small – but the day was not overly warm and somewhat windy. Usage of Quay Meadow is observably very weather dependent.
Among the other activities captured in visitor comments were feeding the ducks and watching the sailing
Where else they visit
From the visitor’s perspective, a visit to Bosham is quite often combined with visit(s) to other places – Chichester being the most common.
Among the “Other” places mentioned as combined visits are Emsworth,Portsmouth, the Witterings, Tangmere and Petworth.
What draws them here
Possibly the most important question is to ask what draws visitors to Bosham. The questionnaire invited visitors to tick a number of specific things which we surmised might attract them here and the responses provide some insight into what draws them here.
But the questionnaire also asked visitors for their brief comments about Bosham. These, taken in conjunction with the conversations which we had with many of the visitors whilst getting them to complete a questionnaire, provide a better picture of what attracts visitors to Bosham.
Repeated comments were - it’s a lovely place; beautiful; tranquil; historic, unique; stunning; pretty; very friendly; wonderful ambience; scenic; relaxing; unspoiled.
One visitor comment perhaps sums it up – “The centre of the village is the attraction, it’s why we come here”.
And another visitor comment perhaps sums up what we should do about Bosham from a visitor perspective – “Leave it alone”
Plans
The current plan is to :-
- Complete a slightly more detailed analysis
- Repeat the survey (but seeking only a much smaller sample of perhaps 30 questionnaires) at intervals of a few weeks over the next 11 months in order to gain some insight into how the visitor profile varies throughout the year. We would, for example expect the numbers of families with children under 18 to drop off sharply in early Sept but come back up somewhat over half term.
Note that the working group are carrying out a separate series of observations of the number of cars parked in the car park, on Shore Road and elsewherein order to provide an evidence base for estimating the average number of visitors per day at different times of the year. These estimates will be used to provide an estimate of total visitors per year.
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