PEI Tourism Survey cannot be applied to the Gulf Shore
The Tourism Research Centre of UPEI conducted a paper and web based survey http://www.trc.upei.ca/files/Wind_Energy_Report.pdf of 1,676 residents and visitors to “capture perceptions of wind energy production and wind farms, and their perceived effects on the landscape.”
Given there were 1.4 million visitors to the Island last year, a survey number of 1,313 visitors this summer seems rather small to be truly representative. Only 363 residents were surveyed, with a stated sampling error of 4.8% at 95%, these results verge on being barely statistically significant.
There is no indication as to whether the visitors surveyed were day trippers or cottagers. 145 (11%) of the surveys were conducted at Visitor Information Centres (VIC). These centres are mostly frequented by day trippers, not cottagers. The people who return year after year rarely require the services of a VIC. Also, the visitors are often referred to as “travelers”. From this, one has to suspect that most of the non-resident people surveyed were short stay or day-trippers.
What we do know is the demographic composition of the travelers (mostly families and couples), whether they had been to the Island before (80.4% were repeat visitors) and what areas they visited. The report states: “Charlottetown and Anne’s Land are the two most popular areas to visit while on PEI. Fewer visitors travel to the eastern and western regions of PEI. Since these are the locations on PEI where the wind farms are located, it is expected that a bare majority, at best, would have seen a wind farm on PEI. ” The report later states that only 51% of visitors had even seen a wind farm, while 83.3% of residents had seen one.
There were questions as to how energy should be produced and how much one would be prepared to pay for greener energy. There were more negative comments about wind turbines from residents than visitors.
Residents and long term seasonal residents are more likely to have experienced the positive or negative effects than day trippers. This is reflected when asked that the perception that PEI is “Canada’s Green Province” where residents did not believe this to be true but visitors did.
The appendices A to E of verbatim and written comments appear to be unavailable for review.
One finding of the report was that “44% of both residents and visitors either agreed or strongly agreed that a wind farm adds to the attractiveness of the area it is based.” In other words, 56% disagreed that they add to the attractiveness. The majority believed that wind energy is a good use of the land, but whether the original use of that land (forestry, farmland, cottage country or Anne’s Land) was part of how these turbines are located was not part of the survey. While the majority believed there should be more wind energy produced, they were not asked where the turbines should be located.
Even if we can believe the results from this very small and incomplete survey as being statistically significant, the results cannot be applied to the Gulf Shore, because there is no indication that the same kind of visitors (or residents) have been surveyed. The report shows support for wind energy (as do we) but does not ask where this energy should be found.
Wind energy may be a good use of land, but it has to be the in an area that does not impact the neighbourhood and it’s economy.
The Gulf Shore area is a long term seasonal visitor destination area. It is where people come an stay for long periods of time. Many retire here. We have our day-trippers, but by far the more important part of our economy is driven by the long term “visitors”.
8 October 2008
The copyright of this article is owned by the author or publisher indicated. Its availability here constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law as well as in similar "fair dealing" exceptions of the copyright laws of other nations, as part of National Wind Watch's effort to advance understanding of the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development. For more information, click here.
Blog it:
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
|
