Weekend visitors' views and perceptions at an urban national forest park of Cyprus during summertime

Abstract

Urban national forest parks provide nature preservation and recreational opportunities for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities as well as tourists. We empirically examine the preferences and satisfaction of visitors in the Athalassa National Forest Park, which is located in a peri-urban area in the capital city of Cyprus. This study examines visitors' evaluation of the Athalassa in 600 face-to-face interviews during summertime weekends. A two-step cluster analysis identified two distinct clusters of visitors based on the three dimensions of satisfaction that resulted from the factor analysis and the characteristics of the visit. The dual role of the urban forest National Park was highlighted. Both local and tourist visitors were satisfied and appreciative of the setting and support services, although only the local and higher income visitors were willing to pay an entrance fee, whereas tourists avoided expressing their opinion. Management implications: This study highlighted a number of deficiencies and produced information that could be used to integrate the management decision-making process and assist in defining major lines of action for more inclusive use of urban national forest parks. The results revealed that the visitors were overall satisfied with the park, but the benefits promoted from this important green infrastructure were not evenly distributed across different sections of society with older age groups and those of lower socioeconomic status were not accessing the park to the same extent as other groups, thus there is some room for improvement. However, in a time of economic crisis, the management of the park must be based on a combination of satisfying the two clusters and on improving efforts in different infrastructures.

Preferences of Tourists for the Service Quality of Taichung Calligraphy Greenway in Taiwan

“…Most of the visitors to the Calligraphy Greenway paid more attention to environmental landscape resources than cultural landscape resources. This result is consistent with the results of previous studies for preferences on urban forests or green space, in which most visitors preferred to enjoy the feeling of being close to the nature [40,41].…”

“…In addition, the results of this study show that most visitors went for a walk in the Taichung Calligraphy Greenway and the majority of visitors were Taichung residents. The result shows that most of the visitors to an urban forest/greenway would be those who lived closer to it [40,41]. The function of urban green space and forests tended to provide an area for relaxation, going for a walk and doing exercises.…”

“…The results of this study show that the visitors to the Calligraphy Greenway tended to prefer the recreational types with low consumption. Karanikola et al [40] suggested that more attention should be paid to the groups with a low income and limited recreation, because they accounted for about 60% of all visitors. They also mentioned that visitors had higher preference levels (expectation) for recreational facilities.…”

Cycling as a Smart and Green Mode of Transport in Small Touristic Cities

“…Trip distance appears to play a key role as it is one of the variables that makes bicycle use prohibitive for long distance travel [31], and attractive for shorter routes [32,33], for example, in the Netherlands where 25% of the total trips realized per person per day are made by bicycle. This share went up to 33% when considering that the trips were no longer than 7.5 km, and even up to 44% when the trips were between 1 km and 2.5 km [26].…”

The Characteristics of Urban Forests as Restorative Environments with the use of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale: focusing on the Hongneung Experimental Forest, Seoul, South Korea

“…The study of one's preferences and perceptions of natural spaces has been emphasized for the management of urban forests and parks (Sterl, Brandenburg, & Arnberger, 2008), and there have been on-going analyses of the satisfaction and preference of urban forests. For example, Karanikola, Panagopoulos, and Tampakis (2017) analysed the user's preference and satisfaction regarding forest management, while Paletto, Guerrini, and De Meo (2017) analysed the user's preference for the degree of thinning for urban forest management. To deduce improvements to urban forests, Japelj et al (2016) assessed the users' preferences of environmental elements, while Zhai, Baran, and Wu (2018) analysed differences in visitation patterns based on the motivation of the users using a Global Positioning System tracking device, and Zhang and Zhou (2018) analysed social media data to determine the effect of the location and accessibility of urban forests on visiting patterns.…”