Visitors quizzed for National Park Survey

A year long visitor survey in the Cairngorms National Park is getting underway this month with a view to carrying out more than 2,000 interviews over the course of the study.

The Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) has commissioned mruk Research Ltd to carry out the visitor survey, which will gather a variety of information including why people choose the area for a holiday, activities undertaken, transport usage and National Park awareness.

It’s the first visitor survey the CNPA has commissioned since 2003 when a comprehensive study was carried out to establish some baseline information on visitor profiles, behaviour and motivations. This information has helped underpin the development of the Cairngorms Sustainable Tourism Strategy and the National Park Plan.

Heather Trench, Sustainable Tourism Officer at the CNPA said: “Six years on from our first visitor survey we expect to see some significant changes in why and how people come to the National Park and what they get up to when they are here.

“For example, the 2003 survey showed that 11 per cent of visitors said they used the internet to research their holiday so we would expect to see an increase in that figure and we would certainly hope that – with signage and comprehensive visitor information now in place – that more people will be aware of the fact that they are in a National Park compared to the previous survey.”

mruk Research will carry out 2,500 face-to-face interviews at identified locations throughout the Cairngorms National Park between May 2009 and April 2010 across different days of the week and times of the day. An interim summer season report will be published in November 2009 with the final report expected in July next year.