This research undertook a visitor survey in two protected areas in different cultural contexts, namely China and the UK, to explore whether the value a person attaches to the environment influences their attitude towards sustainable tourism development in national parks. Structural equation models were developed with data from 597 and 368 questionnaires collected in Jiuzhaigou National Scenic Area, China and the New Forest National Park, UK respectively. The results suggested that anthropocentric or ecocentric values significantly influence people's attitudes to tourism and sustainable development. The same structured causal relationship was found in both samples, between people's attitudes towards the natural environment, conservation and tourism in a national park context.

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Mounting environmental issues have prompted reconsideration of the human-nature relationship. Accordingly, attitudes to nature, as an important dimension of human-nature interactions, have become a research focus. In particular, how feelings and attitudes towards nature are influenced by evolutionary and social-cultural constructions, and whether there is variation between different cultural groups, demands more attention. Using a survey of visitors to two very different National Parks, the New Forest National Park, England and Jiuzhaigou National Scenic Area, China, this paper shows that of nationality and past and present living environment，differences between the two nationalities were significant in respect of both attitudes and feelings. Specifically, it demonstrates that the biophilia thesis, which purports that people have an innate, and hence a genetically inherited, need for affiliation with nature is influenced by their socio-cultural environment, in particular their national culture, but also by their current living place. The study contributes to a better understanding of sustainable tourism in natural areas.

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Ethical issues related to animal rights have gained significant exposure in the past few decades. As a result, animal welfare concerns have continuously been at the forefront of public debate. This has had a major impact on Western culture, expressed in the growing popularity of lifestyle changes towards reducing and abandonment of animal use across different industries. However, animal use in planned events remains insufficiently studied and absent from most event management literature. Therefore, this research aims to explore the opinions of Millennials on the use of live animals in events. The literature discusses anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism and cognitive dissonance, as reoccurring themes. A combination of a focus group and semi-structured interviews was undertaken and the analysis identified entertainment, financial benefit and tradition as the main reasons for using live animals at events. Awareness and transparency on animal welfare issues within the events industry were stated by interviewees as points for improvement together with the lack of a clear definition of animal welfare, especially when it comes to captive and performing animals, as well as the uncertainty regarding animals' stakeholder status in events.

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Ethical issues related to animal rights have gained significant exposure in the past few decades. As a result, animal welfare concerns have continuously been at the forefront of public debate. This has had a major impact on Western culture, expressed in the growing popularity of lifestyle changes towards reducing and abandonment of animal use across different industries. However, animal use in planned events remains insufficiently studied and absent from most event management literature. Therefore, this research aims to explore the opinions of Millennials on the use of live animals in events. The literature discusses anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism and cognitive dissonance, as reoccurring themes. A combination of a focus group and semi-structured interviews was undertaken and the analysis identified entertainment, financial benefit and tradition as the main reasons for using live animals at events. Awareness and transparency on animal welfare issues within the events industry were stated by interviewees as points for improvement together with the lack of a clear definition of animal welfare, especially when it comes to captive and performing animals, as well as the uncertainty regarding animals' stakeholder status in events.

Leisure preferences have been accounted for by a variety of variables, including gender, age and race; and by personality and other internal attributes. It could be hypothesised therefore that there would be a relationship between the different but associated leisure activities chosen by people. However to date, little attention has been paid in this area. This study uses a survey of residents in southern England (n = 397) to identify the preferences for visiting and revisiting a garden that is open to the public, (i.e. a visitor attraction), based on the respondent's interest in gardening. Logistic regression was used first to identify which factors best predict the likelihood that the respondents would report that they had a visited a garden in the year of the study. It was then implemented to identify whether they sometimes like to revisit a garden. Three predictor (independent) variables were assessed in each case. First, whether the respondent has access to a garden space; secondly, their level of enthusiasm for gardening as a hobby and thirdly, how enjoyable they thought a visit to a garden attraction would be. The results show that both models were statistically significant, (chi square = 43.460, p = 0.000 with df = 6 and chi square = 36.488, p = 0.000 with df = 6). In respect of visiting a garden, the respondents' enthusiasm for amateur gardening made a statistically significant contribution to the model. Respondents who quite liked gardening were slightly less likely to visit a garden than the enthusiastic gardeners. The strongest predictor of making a visit was perhaps unsurprisingly, those that thought a visit would be very enjoyable. This had an odds ratio of 2.01 indicating that these respondents were twice as likely to visit as those who thought a visit would be only quite enjoyable or quite or very unenjoyable. However, the result was not statistically significant, which suggests the presence of an omitted variable. The figure rose to six times more likely in respect of revisiting the same garden and this was statistically significant (p = 0.041). In light of these important results, further analysis was undertaken to establish the characteristics of the respondents based on the two key variables and why they might revisit. To conclude, an interest in gardening is not the most important factor in predicting garden visiting.