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When we describe a pie chart that gives information about percentage of common reasons for travel to a country, which of these two is correct?

As it is mentioned above, half of visitors has a trip for vacation

As it is mentioned above, half of visitors have a trip for vacation

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a.toraby
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    By the way, it would be usual to include a definite article before "visitors". Also, "As it is mentioned above" is not idiomatic. I would recommend this reworded version: "As mentioned above, half of the visitors have a trip for vacation". – herisson Dec 19 '16 at 04:39
  • @sumelic thanks. But as mentioned above. We are talking about percentage of visitors in the chart. So isn't it a compelling reason to use singularly verb? Because percentage of the passengers is an amount, not number of things – a.toraby Dec 19 '16 at 04:54
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    "Half" of the visitors, even as a percentage, still refers to a group of countable things (visitors) so a plural verb would be natural. – herisson Dec 19 '16 at 04:55
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    You could also use “half of all visitors”... – Jim Dec 19 '16 at 05:39
  • @a.toraby would you consider migrating your question to ELL, i.e English Language for Learners? You should become a member, I think your question would be warmly received, and generate more interest over there. It will be very difficult to reopen your question on EL&U because the older questions do answer the title, but fail to address the equally important issues that your question raised. – Mari-Lou A Dec 19 '16 at 10:58

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I would reword the whole thing and use the past tense because the pie chart reports statistics that were accurate when they were recorded.

As mentioned previously, half of the visitors stated that the trip was for pleasure.

Notice that the term trip is in the singular, so the auxiliary is singular too.

As trips are often categorized as being for pleasure or business, I chose to say pleasure instead of "vacation". In fact, the expressions business trip and pleasure trip are idiomatic in English.

If the statistic hovers around 50%, e.g., 48.9%, 51.2% then use an adverb such as: approximately, nearly, almost, close to or just under/over half

Approximately 50 percent of all visitors stated that their trip to (NAME OF COUNTRY) was for a vacation.

Examples found on Google Books

  1. Approximately half the visitors (53%) had season tickets and just under half (47%) were male

Festival and Events Management

Notice that the plural verb agrees with the subject visitors

N.B the preposition "of" can be dropped from half of, as seen in this example taken from the Bentley University research survey.

  1. Ranking second as a pre-trip influence and representing over half the visitors (53%) reported they also used printed brochures, maps and travel guides to help plan a visit.
Mari-Lou A
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