A zoo has categorized its visitors into three categories: member, school, and general. The member category refers to visitors who pay an annual fee to support the zoo. Members receive certain benefits such as discounts on merchandise and trips planned by the zoo. The school category includes faculty and students from day care and elementary and secondary schools; these visitors generally receive a discounted rate. The general category includes all other visitors. The zoo has been concerned about a recent drop in attendance. To help better understand attendance and membership, a zoo staff member has collected the following data in the DATAfile Zoo.
Visitor Category 2011 2012 2013 2014
General 153,713 158,704 163,433 169,106
Member 115,523 104,795 98,437 81,217
School 82,885 79,876 81,970 81,290
Total 352,121 343,375 343,840 331,613
Required:
a. Construct a bar chart of total attendance over time. Comment on any trend in the data.
b. Construct a side-by-side bar chart showing attendance by visitor category with year as the variable on the horizontal axis.
c. Comment on what is happening to zoo attendance based on the charts from parts (a) and (b).