Experiencing Bavarias Geological Heritage—the Project “Hundred Masterpieces”

Lagally, Ulrich; Loth, Georg

doi:10.1007/s12371-016-0209-9

Cited by 10 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The social media trend may be bewildering to mature generations, but it has the effect of creating interest in geosites through geographical tagging [38,73], which supports the dissemination of majestic landscape photos and must-see places worldwide. Lagally and Loth [74] tell of another type of collecting-geosite collecting-that was inspired by the Bavaria's Most Beautiful Geosites series [24]. A list of all 100 landforms was entered into the geocaching platform (Geocaching.com is a web platform where caches can be found for fun using geographical tags.…”

Section: Geotourist Litementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These "forests of signs" are repellant and disturb the landscape. Most relevant to the matter at hand, and as we see repeatedly in the literature, these long signs go mostly unread [44][45][46][47][48][49]65,74]. Hose even found that three-quarters of visitors to his site ignored or barely scanned signs [10].…”

Section: Latent Geotourist: Novel Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If no one reads the sign, it does not matter what it says. Too often communities struggle to maintain accuracy while putting information into layman's terms [48,74] or, worse, they try to fit every bit of information at the geosite. In practice, the holistic ABC approach, which requires the inclusion of abiotic, biotic, and cultural attractions [10], can result in loquacious and demanding signs if a framework is not employed.…”

Section: Latent Geotourist: Novel Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is before the interpretive text is crafted, which is an art in itself [36,49,50]. Creating a cohesive visual style adds a recognition factor [74] that translates across markets. Mapping signs in a consistent manner enables one to navigate them automatically, eliminating struggle [93] from what should be a leisurely episode.…”

Section: Latent Geotourist: Novel Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A rough sketch can be seen in Figure 6. The sign generally reflects best practices described (e.g., a fetching title [65], a text count of around 60 words per chunk [46,47,87], plenty of white space [88][89][90], attention to alignment and hierarchy [28,[88][89][90], and a link to outside resources [26,74]). The author is not a graphic artist, so an expert will be consulted before the template is put to use.…”

Section: Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tailoring Signs to Engage Two Distinct Types of Geotourists to Geological Sites

Prendivoj

2018

Geosciences

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Interpretive signs are the silent ambassadors of geosites and serve a diverse audience. The primary aim of this study is to develop signs for geosites targeted at two unique groups of geotourists. A conceptual multidisciplinary geotourist typology is formulated to identify two main classes of geotourists comprising the audience. Latent and archetypal geotourists inhabit various roles at geotourism sites depending on their expectations for the event, affecting the visitor experience via fluid contextual factors. Principally, latent geotourists arrive seeking novel touristic experiences while archetypal geotourists seek knowledge-building opportunities. Because signs represent one fragment of the multi-dimensional visitor experience, an approach that offers a palette of options is advocated. After the unified typology to identify the audience is presented, a multi-layered technique that offers both interpretation and a link to augmented information on signs is suggested. Some best practices in sign design are described and preliminary plans for testing are shared. The author’s overriding goal is to refine the mechanics and format of signs to garner maximum attracting and holding power, ensuring that the message is read and the target outcome is achieved. By providing tools to visitors to geological sites that enable them to create narratives that are compatible with their expectations, we facilitate a multi-dimensional constructive experience that engages everyone.

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