European School

George Kikoria

DP 11?

Section AIntroduction: , In the present state of globalized culture and economy, tourism is thriving as a major epicenter for growth and development for many countries. To boost their economy, cities and towns across cultural spectrum are trying to attract wider and wider scope of tourists, and as economy and society rapidly complexifies, the means to attract said tourists will diversify and intensify. In geography, the environment for tourism is studied and classified, like material resources, tourism also has varying and crucial capitals, or resources, they can be classified under two categories, primary: The pre-existing attractions for tourism or recreation (that is, those not built specifically for the purpose), including climate, scenery, wildlife, indigenous people, cultural and heritage sites.) and secondary, which include accommodation, catering, entertainment and shopping, mainly those resources or destinations specifically developed to be directly or indirectly used in tourism industry. Tourism is beneficial not only for the general public, but also to local society as well, for tourism creates employment, which in turn boost the local and state economy, as local residents receive capital, their expenditure would also increase, meaning higher purchasing power, which in turn will increase prices on goods and services, allowing government to collect more in taxes, likewise tourism influences the social development on the area, such as gender empowerment and equality. By careful observation, one can construe that the quality, quantity and price of goods and services will gradually change, as the distance from the touristic epicenter of the area increases, one can refer to such epicenter as CBD.

My aim is to observe and examine how does the distance from primary tourism resources (in this case the Black Sea and Gonio Fortress) affect the Quality, Availability and Price of secondary tourism resources, including goods and services, such as accommodation, catering, entertainment and shopping. The observation will be concluded after careful examination of the socio-economic and geographical environment in both the city center and remote areas, surveys will be conducted and used on both residents and tourists (Domestic and International).

Hypothesis : The relationship between the distance from primary tourism resources : the pre-existing attractions for tourism or recreation (that is, those not built explicitly for the purpose), including climate, scenery, wildlife, indigenous people, cultural and heritage sites (in this case the Black Sea and Gonio Fortress), and the Quality, Availability and Price of secondary tourism resources, including goods and services, such as: accommodation, catering, entertainment and shopping is inverse.What is the relationship between the distance from primary tourism resources : the pre-existing attractions for tourism or recreation (that is, those not built explicitly for the purpose), including climate, scenery, wildlife, indigenous people, cultural and heritage sites, and the Quality, Availability and Price of secondary tourism resources, including goods and services, such as: accommodation, catering, entertainment and shopping?By concluding careful examination of the socio-economic and geographical environment in both the city center and remote areas, by using surveys on both residents and tourists (Domestic and International), and by analysis of gathered facts and statistics, a correlation between the distance from primary tourism resources and the Quality, Availability and Price of secondary tourism resources can be found.

Geographical context:Gonio, situated near the Turkish-Georgian border (distance is 4km), is a district of a major touristic destination, Batumi, in the Adjara region of Georgia.

Despite the fact that Gonios history spans across major social and historic shifts in world history, only in recent history did the district acquire its name, beforehand it was referred as Apsaros. According to the archaeological expertise, the oldest settlement in the region of Gonio dates back to VIII-VII BC.Using archeological dating, it was concluded that the areas major tourism resource, the Gonio fortress was built between I and II century AD. The area was under Ottoman control for 311 years, between 1547and 1878, but after The Treaty of San Stefano, Gonio as well as the rest ofAdjara was handed over tothe Russian Empire.The major shifts in Gonios history occurred during the militarization of the zone (buffer zone between Turkey and USSR) in the Soviet times and in 90s when Soviet Union was officially disbanded, when Georgia acquired independence (December 25, 1991) Gonio became de-militarized. During the buffer period truism in the region was non-existent, and local population was mainly involved in agriculture. During 2000s and 2010s Gonio enjoyed major economic and social development, alongside Batumi, but in recent years the progress has shown deterioration, impacted by 2008 Russo-Georgian war and following worldwide stock market crash. The reason why Gonio is

Methods Gonio comprises 3 zones A, B and C . Zone A is the area including the beach of Gonio and areas close to the sea . Zone C is generally a mountainous zone far away from the sea. Between the two zones A and C lies the zone B , which is approximately equidistant from Zone A and Zone C . We were divided into pairs of two and we decided to make observations and conduct surveys in a manner that incorporates collaboration. The survey included questions for both the citizens of Gonio and tourists. The purpose was to investigate the extent to the residents accept tourists , how their local environment is affected, how their traditions are altered by overseas visitors ,whether they need any help or training from the government and so forth . The survey was particularly exciting to conduct and its results would be interesting since Gonio has only recently opened its door to tourists , as Id explained in the introduction. Questions asked to tourists were equally interesting and included : the attitude of the residents towards them , whether the area is accessible for the disabled ,how they would rate the quality of food , how much they spend a day , how the quality of services and products are affected as they move away from the sea(and the town center ) and etc. Fortunately enough , I was asked to conduct surveys and observations in Zone A and C . This allowed me to assess the relationship that exists between the quality/availability /price of services /products and the distance from the town center. Finally the main methods used by me and my group were : observations , surveys , photos .Photos are capable of providing additional evidence .Analysis : To prove my hypothesis , I will need to show that there definitely exist intra-urban spatial patterns and that the quality of recreational facilities , shops ,restaurants is affected by economic forces found near the town center .The reason could be that most large shops and recreational activities try to maximize their profits and the way this can be done is to place them into areas where bulk of the population lives or areas which are visited by the largest number of tourists . It is local residents who can best perceive the quality and price difference between shops ( for example ) found in different areas of the town .We together surveyed around 30 residents and not to my surprise , the answer to the Question : Does the distance from the sea affect the price of services ,products and their quality was a yes in all 30 cases no matter in which zones those residents lived. The availability of cafes/fast food restaurants and etc. found in the city center can be depicted by the photos below.

fast food stores , clothes retailers , gas station ,various shops and modern means of transportation found in the town center very close to the sea . All the pictures were

Unlike urban areas in Gonio , rural areas are characterized with low labor specialization and small amount of tourists . These factors didnt allow trade which is the key to economic livelihood to develop there .Subsistence agriculture holds a huge role in the lives of locals. I examined both Zone B and C and I couldnt find any leisure facilities or shops in Zone C which is the farthest from the sea . There were a few shops in Zone B but bars/cafes/restaurants were exclusively found in Zone A which is closest to the sea . Zone C has no leisure activities and shops ; it depends less on tourism and the key to survival is the subsistence agriculture. There are some hostels though for people who enjoy the mountains because of the pure air . This is however is usually the case with national tourists .

When we asked the tourists whether the price of services were affected by the distance from the sea the answers were pretty much the same . All who participated noted a drastic difference and some of them for instance mentioned the prices of hotels/hostels found at the seashore compare to those found in Zone B or Zone C. This can be more easily explained by my own investigation . I visited booking.com and chose a random day to look up hotels in Gonio . I sorted the results by the distance to the seashore . What I discovered was that as the distance increased the price fell down repeatedly and also so did the quality/availability of services at a hotel . For instance , ones closest to the seashore offered a private parking .The randomly chosen date turned out to be the 16th of July .I decided to further investigate the relationship between the price of staying a night at for the 16th of July in a regular double room for selected hotels (All the prices were looked up 4 days earlier) and the distance from the seashore by graphing finding the mean ,median price and the standard deviation .

Booking.com data showing how the distance from the seashore affects the price of staying at a hotel for a night The average price 49.4 EUR is obviously not useful here since it turned out to be very sensitive to the extreme values .The median price 45EUR shows the center of the data and since its lower than the average in our case the values at the low end are a lot lower than most of the rest of the values in the set. Finaly ,the standard deviation of 28.5 suggests that the data is spread out. To verify that the higher price showed wider availability of services , I checked the amenities available at the 5 hotels above and found my initial assumption to be true .

Side-by-side comparison of services available at Hotel Mgzavrebi Batumi-Gonio (0km from the seashore ) and at Guest House Avgia(2.13km from the seashore ) .Obviously Hotel Mgzavrebi Batumi-Gonio has much more to offer to its guests like non-smoking rooms ,family rooms , ironing service , etc. .To finally see whats going on I tried to graphically represent the relationship between the two variables . The linear best-fit line clearly shows the negative correlation between x1(distance from the seashore ) and y1(price per night ) meaning that as we increase in the distance the price drops down . Since the price turned out to be an indicator of availability of services and the quality of accommodation the same relationship would be true for availability of services at a hotel and the distance . I also explored the three zones myself in Gonio and discovered that quite a few hotels are being constructed near the seashore to accommodate the increasing number of tourists . I could perceive no such constructions in either Zone B and Zone C .

New hotels are erected to satisfy the needs and wants of increasing number of tourists . These hotels are located within 20-25 meters from the seashore . My findings suggest that the beach is the main tourist destination and thats why many high-quality services and products can be found near it . In order to avoid blindly presuming this , our survey for tourists also included the question : whats the main purpose of your visit ? . Out of 100 tourists , 72 noted the sea as the main purpose , 15 said the mountains and 10 people said both . 3 tourists however were not precise about their main purpose .The findings can conveniently be depicted by Venn diagram and pie chart .

The Venn diagram showing the survey findings .

Even though the total number of tourists surveyed (100) makes the percentage calculation super easy the size of the sectors of the pie makes c

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