Jeff Green
PRT 505 - Assignment 5
April 24, 2016
Criteria and Procedures
This is a report on the process of selecting a Tourism
Information Center for the Greater Wilmington Area. In conducting
this analysis I looked at a variety of variables: location of the
most popular tourist destinations, proximity of these sites to each
other, relative road density, and density of vegetation, local
knowledge, and population.
The first step was to review the most popular tourist sites. I
did a google search of popular sites in the Wilmington area. The
sites I chose were the Battleship North Carolina, the Riverfront
Boardwalk, Historic Downtown Wilmington, Cape Fear Museum, Carolina
Beach Boardwalk, the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, and
Fort Fisher. Next I visited each of the sites to collect
information. I used the application Collector to input the data to
ARCGis. The data input was location, parking, condition of sites,
notes, and a picture of the site. Once this information was
collected then I had a basic map of all of the tourist sites that I
could use to begin my analysis of the best location to put a
Tourism Information Center.
Next I went to my ARCGis online map. I used the directions tool
to produce a spreadsheet of the distances between all seven sites.
Then I calculated the average distance by site relative to the
other six sites. I then produced 2 mile buffer zones around each of
the sites to see where there was overlap (see map 1). Then I
created a map that included only the overlap area (see map 2).
Somewhere in this overlap area was where the center would be
proposed for location.
I then produced and enriched layer that included information on
groundcover, relative road density, and total population. I then
put this information into a spreadsheet for analysis. The two site
selection criteria that I put the most emphasis on were average
distance in miles from other sites and relative road density.
I also performed an analysis to choose the best facility based
on minimized travel that included demand to facility and traffic
during typical conditions (see results in map 3).
Conclusion
· Justification for final site
There were two areas that had overlapping buffer zones. One was
in the downtown Wilmington Area. The other was in the Carolina
Beach area. The Carolina Beach area was eliminated because of its
limited access. It is on an island with only one road for ingress
and egress. With this in mind I began to analyze where in the
downtown area would be best for the site for the Tourism
Information Center. I narrowed it down by looking at the area where
all four buffer zones overlapped. Then I performed two different
analyses: 1) location analysis in ARCGis and 2) using an Excel
chart (see chart 1) to calculate average distance between sites and
relative road density. The location analysis came up with a site
that is displayed in Map 4. Using the second analysis, all four
visitor sites were similar but when looking at relative road
density the Cape Fear Museum site was best. So using both methods
it shows that the best site for the center would be in the downtown
area near the Cape Fear Museum.
· Key Lessons learned
There are almost unlimited uses for mapping software such as
ARCGis. When I was doing some exploring in the system I realized
that what we have done so far in this class is but a small part of
we can be done.
Chart 1
Map 1
Map 2
Map 3
Map 4
Flow chart
(Locate Popular Tourist SitesSite 1 North Carolina
BattleshipSite 7 Fort FisherSite 6 North Carolina Aquarium at Fort
FisherSite 5 Carolina Beach BoardwalkSite 4 Cape Fear MuseumSite 3
Historic DowntownSite 2 Riverfront BoardwalkCreate Buffer Zones and
ID Potential areasZone 1Carolina Beach AreaZone 2Downtown
Wilmington AreaSelect ZoneLocation AnalysisCriteria Analysis:
distance and relative road densitySite Selection)
AVG Distance
in Miles
Relative Road
DensityGreen LCTotal Population
Site 1 Battleship11.61173.3622.4216217
Site 2 Riverfront9.83165.0422.3819599
Site 3 Downtown9.92159.6322.4420046
Site 4 Cape Fear Museum10.33151.5722.5524225
