Visitor’s Opinions

Although Windsor is seen to be a tourist town, filled with a number of attractions for all, it is necessary to get tourists opinions of the place. Tourists may hold many different and in some cases extremely opposing views on what they make of the town, criteria in which the town could improve on, attributes it lacks and generally whether or not Windsor is or is not worth a visit. Opinions of Windsor through its' tourists go a long way in raising the profile Windsor as a tourist town. The opinions of the tourist go hard in hand in either contributing to a negative or positive impact of tourism in the area. It is these opinions that are highly regarded in a town like Windsor and through the data collected we can see how these positive or negative opinions are affecting the town. Whilst in Windsor a number of different questions were asked to tourists to gain their opinions on Windsor as a tourist destination. The age of the visitors interviewed is an important point to get across. As often people's ages does sometimes affect decisions you make with you opinions. As figure S demonstrate the main age category of people I was dealing with was between 40-49 this category was inclusive of 5 people, the category30-39 year olds inclusive of 4 people, 50-59, 3 people and Under 18, 19-29 and 60+ 2 people each. This shows us that we were mainly dealing with the views of the middle aged but I was also receiving information from people of a variety of different age groups, suggesting that a balanced view across all age groups was obtained. Rating the journey to Windsor (see fig. T) although does not provide information on the main title question does show us how accessible Windsor is for the tourist and how easy their journey to the tourist destination was. Ten people opted to say that their journey was ‘very good, another eleven stated that it was Good and one person even said that their journey to Windsor should be rated as Excellent. This not only gives indication to the suggestion that traffic coming into Windsor on this particular day was not at all bad, but also shows that a number of accessible routes have been developed to come into Windsor, from a number of different means of transportation. To see how tourists rate Windsor as a tourist destination (see fig. T) is a very significant question. This tells us precisely what the tourist is thinking about the destination. When carrying out this survey I received mixed views from the interviewees. Six people rated the destination as being Excellent, another seven recommended it as a Very Good destination, four people rated it as Good and three people said that it was Poor. This although is a general good outlook on the town as there was a large amount of positive feedback does indicate that there are problems in Windsor certain tourists are experiencing. Which brings me to the next question – problems tourists are associating with Windsor (see fig. G). Litter, toilet accessibility, crime and queuing were not seen to be problems by tourists in Windsor. Instead crowding was seen to be a major deterrent with eight people feeling that this was a serious problem, the High Price of facilities was perhaps the biggest problem with eleven people feeling that this should be addressed, especially the regional price variations that occur within Windsor during the peak tourists months. Noise was a small setback with four people feeling that this was an issue to be dealt with and language barriers was perhaps an underlying problem with only two people feeling that this should be addressed. The final question was the most gaining in terms of the opinion of the tourist. It asks whether Windsor would be recommended as a tourist town to a friend (see figure L). Sixteen people opted as Yes and four as No. This again highlights Windsor's ‘tourist appeal' and popularity as a tourist destination as approximately over seventy percent of those people interviewed gave Windsor a positive affirmation. Aside from all this I also gained the opinion of Mrs. Brumpt in a separate interview I conducted regarding Windsor she felt like many other tourists and that is that Windsor did not have many problem to be addressed, but did say Windsor â€Å"needed to become more ‘user friendly' and have easier access for disabled persons† and that traffic congestion when she commuted to work was also a big problem that needed to be tackled. Overall Windsor has received a lot of positive feedback from tourists. There were not any real concerns with problems, and as Windsor already implements a number of improvements most are usually dealt with. However I feel I should mention pricing as this is what concerns most people. This however, is an understandable problem and the regional variations in prices only occurs as a result of Windsor wanting to make as mush money out of the tourist as possible and in the process strengthening the economy. Nevertheless this is not such a major deterrent as people are still coming back to spend money in Windsor. Generally speaking Windsor is easily accessible, a good tourist destination and many would recommend the town to friends to visit. Tourist opinions give us a more lucid perception of Windsor's ‘tourist appeal', which tourists feel is potentially very high indeed. Through the opinions of visitor's alone we can see that tourism has had an impact on Windsor as with the many encouraging points made about the town can do it no harm, but yet a lot of good. Positive tourist opinions help to boost Windsor's market as if these tourists have a good experience and enjoy Windsor they will no doubt tell their friends and family who will also then want to visit the area. Therefore in terms of Visitor's opinions on Windsor this does have an impact as it helps to generate a greater income for the local economy through the number of tourists visiting the area.