Northumberland Market Town Visitor Surveys 2009: Wooler For Northumberland Tourism March 2010 © Northumberland Tourism 2010 Northumberland Market Town Visitor Surveys 2009: Wooler, March 2010 Page 2 Contents 1. Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................3 2. Project background ..................................................................................................................................7 3. Aims and objectives .................................................................................................................................7 4. Methodology ..............................................................................................................................................8 5. Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................9 6. Key findings ............................................................................................................................................. 10 6.1 Visitor characteristics ...................................................................................................................... 10 6.1.1 Origin .............................................................................................................................................. 10 6.1.2 Frequency of visits ........................................................................................................................ 12 6.1.3 Type of visit ................................................................................................................................... 13 6.1.4 Reasons for visiting ...................................................................................................................... 14 6.1.5 Group travel .................................................................................................................................. 15 6.1.6 Group size and composition ...................................................................................................... 15 6.2 Planned activities ............................................................................................................................... 16 6.3 Travel & Transport ........................................................................................................................... 17 6.3.1 Method of transport .................................................................................................................... 17 6.3.2 Car parks ........................................................................................................................................ 19 6.4 Accommodation ................................................................................................................................ 21 6.4.1 Type of accommodation used ................................................................................................... 21 6.4.2 Experience of accommodation .................................................................................................. 23 6.5 Attractions visited ............................................................................................................................. 24 6.5.1 Events visited ................................................................................................................................. 25 6.5.2 Tourist Information Centre ....................................................................................................... 26 6.6 Experience of visit ............................................................................................................................. 28 6.6.1 Overall satisfaction ....................................................................................................................... 28 6.6.2 Satisfaction with specific aspects and priorities .................................................................... 31 6.6.3 Visitor likes and dislikes .............................................................................................................. 38 6.7 Visitor expenditure ........................................................................................................................... 45 6.7.1 Average spend per person per day .......................................................................................... 46 6.7.2 Average spend per person per trip .......................................................................................... 48 6.8 Visitor demographics ....................................................................................................................... 49 6.8.1 Age and gender ............................................................................................................................. 49 6.8.2 Work situation .............................................................................................................................. 50 6.8.3 Disability ......................................................................................................................................... 50 6.8.4 Ethnicity .......................................................................................................................................... 51 7. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 52 8. Recommendations ................................................................................................................................. 54 9. Appendices .............................................................................................................................................. 55 9.1 Survey .................................................................................................................................................. 55 9.2 Verbatim comments ......................................................................................................................... 62 Project number: Trism08-5197 Title: Market Town Welcome Surveys Location: ..\..\TRISM08-5197_MTW_Analysis Date: March 2010 Report status: Final version This research has been carried out in compliance with the MRQSA Approved by: Nick How international standard (ISO20:252) Authors: Millie Ostlere & Zak Haeri © Northumberland Tourism 2010 Northumberland Market Town Visitor Surveys 2009: Wooler, March 2010 Page 3 1. Executive Summary Project background The Market Town Welcome (MTW) programme was established in 2008 in collaboration with One North East, Northumberland County Council (NCC), Northumberland Tourism (NT) and the Development Trusts in each of the towns mentioned below This research will provide benchmarks in 2009/2010 against which to measure the performance of the MTW Programme and its initiatives The research will also add to a suite of research data used to advise a range of planning and policy processes in Northumberland and North East England Alongside this report, individual reports for Alnwick, Amble, Berwick upon Tweed, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Morpeth, and Seahouses are available, as well as an overall comparison report Aims and objectives The overarching aim of the MTW research is to ‘Improve visitor satisfaction of Northumberland market towns and raise their profile within the visitor economy’ To target the research objectives, NT commissioned face-to-face quantitative surveys for each of the market towns. Street interviews were conducted over four days in both the spring and summer of 2009. Only people who were visiting the town were included. Those who lived and/or worked in the town, or were there on business were excluded By achieving 438 completions in Wooler, we can approximate the error margin to be low (+/-4.7%) at a confidence level 95%, which offers robust results Visitor characteristics The majority (97%) of respondents to this survey were UK residents, with 3% from overseas. Respondents from the UK were most likely (46%) to live in the North East Two thirds (64%) of respondents said they had visited Wooler before. Out of these respondents, 76% had previously visited at least once in the last 12 months The majority (83%) of respondents said their trip was a staying visit compared to 17% who were day visitors, by far the highest proportion of staying visits across all eight MTW towns. More than half of staying visitors (58%) said they were staying outside of Wooler The main reason visitors chose to visit Wooler was for shopping (33%) followed by tourism (25%) Overall, 1% of visitors said they were part of an organised group or coach party (5 respondents) – average for all the market towns in this research (3%) © Northumberland Tourism 2010 Northumberland Market Town Visitor Surveys 2009: Wooler, March 2010 Page 4 Visitors in Wooler were most likely to say they would include walking among their activities during their visit to Northumberland (97%), followed by wildlifer watching (16%) and cycling (12%). Travel & Transport The majority of visitors used a car, van or motorhome to reach Wooler (76%). These respondents found it very or fairly easy to travel into Wooler Town Centre and 80% believed it was easy or very easy to park in the town. The majority used free parking (79%). Accommodation Overall, the greatest proportion of staying visitors (55%) said they were camping or caravanning with most