Motivations and Satisfaction of New Zealand Domestic Tourists to Inform Landscape Design in a Nature-Based Setting

Gill Lawson, David Dean, Yuqing He and Xinghua Huang
Additional contact information
Gill Lawson: School of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand
David Dean: Department of Agribusiness and Markets, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand
Yuqing He: School of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand
Xinghua Huang: School of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-24

Abstract: Increased tourist pressures can cause the deterioration of nature-based tourist destinations and adversely affect visitor satisfaction. This study aims to identify how public participation using mobile devices on-site can assist in assessing future design scenarios for a popular nature-based destination, within a short day trip from Christchurch in Aotearoa New Zealand. An online survey using participants’ mobile devices at Kura Tāwhiti Castle Hill Rocks identified domestic tourists’ motivational, satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors, as associated with age and visit frequency at the destination. These factors were linked to site experiences, particularly being out in nature, that could be used to design future scenarios for similar nature-based settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. Four future scenarios using 2D photomontages were used to rank domestic visitor preferences for changing paths and tracks, fencing, signage, structures and people. The study found that the low-impact scenario with the least people was the most desirable. This high level of sensitivity of New Zealanders to change in outdoor recreational destinations suggests that nature-based settings must be designed and managed with considerable care to minimize the perception of over-crowding and the deterioration of the site experience, particularly for return visitors.

Keywords: nature tourism; tourist satisfaction; landscape design; New Zealand; visualization; future scenarios (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12415/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12415/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12415-:d:676273

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().