How Do People Experience the Alps? Attitudes and Perceptions in Two Protected Areas in Italy

Noemi Rota (), Claudia Canedoli, Oscar Luigi Azzimonti and Emilio Padoa-Schioppa
Additional contact information
Noemi Rota: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy
Claudia Canedoli: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy
Oscar Luigi Azzimonti: Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy
Emilio Padoa-Schioppa: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: Protected areas play an important role due to their twofold capacity for biodiversity conservation and the provision of many benefits to human well-being. Tourism can be a tool for protecting nature, enhancing people’s sensitivity, and a threat to biodiversity management. This study investigates users’ attitudes and perceptions and managers’ concerns related to the frequentation of two protected areas in the Italian Alps: the Gran Paradiso National Park and the Adamello Regional Park. We carried out 32 semi-structured interviews with park managers and municipalities to identify their perception of tourism and possible threats related to the use of the parks. Thus, we administered questionnaires to 3399 users of the PAs to investigate their attitudes and perceptions. We made considerations on whether there were similarities in the attitudes identified by the park managers and results of the questionnaires. Questionnaires confirmed the managers’ perception of mass tourism regarding one-day stays and the purpose of the visits, but we could not exhaustively confirm the increase of new visitors. We performed a binary logistic regression to understand the relationship between short-term stays and attitudes of visitors (origin, frequency of visits, stakeholders’ category, and biographical data). Eventually, interviews stated an exacerbation of the growth of visitors due to the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, we investigated if the pandemic changed the assiduity of visits, and half of the users claimed a change in their assiduity of visits, but mostly declared a decreased frequentation of the area.

Keywords: tourism; Gran Paradiso National Park; Adamello Regional Park; recreational services; alpine areas; mass tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3341/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3341/ (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:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3341-:d:1065478

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 ().