Week 10

Hi everyone. As I am working on my senior project and deliverable, I wanted to share some of the specific statistics from the responses to my interview questions.

The most interestingly incongruent percentages I found were that 80 percent of business owners and two out of three mayors said that laws and governmental agencies overly hindering economic growth and success of businesses in and near the Amalfi coast, but only a quarter of the people interviewed and one mayor thought that this needs to be changed. Additionally, out of the 10 people that said that they wanted these laws to change, 8 were under the age of 35, despite ages being relatively evenly between 25 and 60, with only one or two people outside of that range.

Regarding age in terms of responses, there was a large increase in progressivism (progressivism being wanting governmental and societal changes and reform) from the age of 35 and lower. Throughout the three questions I asked about changing policies and increasing the creation of businesses, people aged under 35 answered in the affirmative 30% more than those over 35. This may be caused by those older having more experience and context on the benefits of the current system, or it may be caused by the increased exposure to other cultures and countries that the younger generation has through technology.

Despite the differing opinions on some of these questions, there were two unanimous responses to the questions I asked. The first is the importance of laws that help maintain the cultural integrity of the area, and the other interestingly is the preferred tourist nationality. Every person who worked in the tourism industry that I talked to recognized that the Amalfi coast elevates itself over other tourist destinations because of the richness of Italian culture, which comes from its well-documented and consistent history of architectural and artistic styles and traditions. Though opinions on how this should be executed, everyone I asked agreed that there need to be some limits on what people can do and build in the area. The preferred tourist that everyone said was surprisingly Americans, but the reason was a lot more quantitative. American tourists tend to spend more money than people from anywhere else, and the culture of tipping in America means that they spend more even on the same amount of product.

Thank you all for reading my blog, and I will check in again next week.