On 31/03/2012 08:36, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
18:14:49 on Fri, 30 Mar 2012, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
On 30/03/2012 17:16, Roland Perry wrote:

ABTA's report said:

"Escaping the crowds

Clearly we are not all sports lovers, 12% of Brits say they are
intending to go abroad specifically to avoid the Games and 9% are
looking to go on holiday somewhere in the UK free from Olympics fever.
The older generation appears to be the least keen on staying in the UK;
with 22% of the over 65s intending to head overseas to avoid the Games
and 18% of 55-64 year olds.

OK, so now we can identify the report as being the one at:
http://www.abta.com/resources/news/view/464
though really it's up to you to state your source, not for us to have
to find it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, over a quarter (28%) of Londoners are
considering changing their holiday plans due to the Olympics. Nearly 50%
say they will take time off throughout the games and 77% say they will
be staying in the Capital during the two weeks.

Do such figures have any credibility whatsoever?

Have you ever been involved in market research? They don't just pull
numbers out of a hat.

They might as well for some of the results they get. This seems
particularly likely if the "research" has been commissioned just
to provide an excuse for a press release and hence some free
publicity or if the questions given to the MR firm dictate what
answers are acceptable (as with the drinking survey Arthur saw not
permitting a choice of real ale).

Nor would they claim that a figure like "22%" is
accurate between 21.9% and 22.1%, but 22% is an awful lot of people
(about 15 million) and needs to be taken seriously.

The 22% figure relates to over-65s. I doubt there are 68 million
pensioners in the UK. I might believe that a fifth of pensioners
can afford a foreign holiday but the idea that a fifth of them
across the nation will flee the country to avoid the olympics
seems ... unexpected. (For most of the country avoiding the games
is just a case of avoiding TV and press coverage.)

Of course I can't check whether my expectations are justified
as another characteristic of survey-as-free-PR is that you only
get selected statistics and can't build up a complete picture.
(So here it would be useful to see the proportion of pensioners
that take foreign holidays normally, which would provide context
for the proportion that are planning to flee the games.)

Another characteristic is the odd non-sequitur that gets thrown
in. 40% of people taking time off during the games, eh? Wouldn't
have anything to do with the games occurring during the main
holiday season, would it?


--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk