The decline in economic activities and tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced the pressure on the environment and protected area (PA) systems to some extent. However, the financial losses ...within nature-based tourism due to travel restrictions and park closures will negatively impact tourism income-dependent PAs' management effectiveness. This exploratory study incorporates a risk-assessment framework to investigate and provide first insights into the pandemic's influence on the delivery of management outputs in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia.
Although in 2020, this PA faced a 75% decline in overall revenue compared to the year before, analysis suggests that, in the short term, conservation-related outputs are least affected. Visitor management and PA efforts to support the local community's sustainable development are the most severely impacted first-order outputs. Third-order nature-based tourism-related outputs face average to high risks.
This study's risk-assessment framework provides a starting point for a post-pandemic reassessment of the delivery of PA management outputs and decision-making about output prioritisation and resource allocation. Results suggest several new avenues for research.
Post-pandemic recovery of PA requires prioritisation risk framework to identify specific objectives that should be addressed first and which require additional effort or funding. Facing a crisis PA will allocate financial resources in a way that sustains primary functions such as conservation until negative trends change, or at least until financial resources become available. PAs require a paradigm shift, which includes tailoring of financial mechanisms to practical and policy purposes, effective allocation of financial resources, and responsible tourism recovery plans that capture the value and efforts of conservation through tourism and investments in nature-based solutions for sustainable tourism within PA.
The northern regions of Iran have a high tourism potential that is currently under-utilized, particularly by local tourists. This area is renowned for its cultural and historical type of tourism. ...However, its natural landscapes could be introduced as another source of tourism attraction, since its wide range of geographical spaces makes this area suitable for some nature-based recreation activities such as walking, climbing and camping. The authors seek to suggest a methodology for developing maps showing potential areas for nature-based tourism (NBT) based on the natural physical environments. In this paper, NBT is studied from a geographical point of view. NBT provides a break to everyday life by facilitating the enjoyment of nature. In our study, the approach integrates GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and the analytical network process (ANP) through ordered weighted average (OWA) for mapping potential NBT areas in East Azerbaijan province, Iran. Relevant factors were selected, implemented as GIS datasets, weighted with ANP, and aggregated with OWA. The analysis produced a map identifying areas with a high potential for NBT, which is informative for tourism managers.
In the context of national park management, landscape conservation, and tourism development in a mountain region in Norway, the aim of the research is to analyse how tourists, residents, and local ...stakeholders experience and practise their participation in the landscapes. A mixed methods approach was used, which included focus group meetings, semi-structured interviews, an on-site survey, and two Internet surveys to gain in-depth knowledge of tourists' and locals' relations to and evaluations of the landscape in the studied national park region, which comprised the park itself and eight protected landscape areas. The results revealed that many of the tourists visiting the national park considered the area it covered was a wilderness, while locals considered the area's authenticity was closely connected to cultural traditions and a long-lasting interconnectedness between people and landscape. As both locals and tourists shared a desire to maintain the wildlife and landscape characteristics of the national park, authenticity may serve as a common denominator for emphasizing local development, outdoor activities, and meeting points outside the boundary of the park. The authors conclude that involving tourists in a knowledge process that provides insights into the past and present livelihoods of communities and the use of the natural resources could help to enhance tourists' experiences, but without compromising local understandings of authenticity.
•Identifying the value gap between locals and tourists by using a mixed methods approach.•Portrays the dichotomy of nature and society in a local context.•Describe the contextual and dynamic relation between people and nature.•Provides an example of empirical way to explore mountain environment complexity.•Managing landscape by an understanding of authenticity.
Nature observations are at the core of both nature-based tourism and citizen science. The movement limitations associated with the Covid-19 pandemic have created a window during which tourism ...nose-dived, but online citizen science platforms flourished primarily through the posting of ‘backyard’ observations. Beyond citizen science, a return to nature during this period appears to have been important in supporting mental health, especially in city dwellers, and this has resulted in a renewed interest in studying nature appreciation. Here I attempt to bring together these different facets of nature watching research, defined by divergent philosophical underpinning and following different methodologies. I use the findings of tourism and citizen science studies to summarize observer motivations, and place these in a nature appreciation framework. I argue that this framework can be used towards maintaining a balance between diverse goals: reducing observer biases in citizen science, enhancing observer experience in nature-based tourism, and maximizing the therapeutic effects of being exposed to nature.
Several prior single-location case studies have found that the sensescape of a natural environment contributes to visitors' attention restoration. This study tests the effects of a soundscape and a ...visualscape on attention restoration using data from two natural destinations, Purple Mountain in China and Burleigh Heads Beach in Australia. The results indicate that the characteristics of a soundscape significantly contribute to visitors' attention restoration and quality of life directly and through the mediation of visualscape. Natural environments relate to visitors' quality of life through its multimodal sensescape. Critically, the attention restoration model is found to be applicable in different natural contexts, revealing that the restorative value of a natural sensescape is not contextually bound. Nature-based tourism can be used to promote mental health in the post-COVID-19 period worldwide.
•Paper explores the effects of natural sensescape on visitors' health and well-being.•The interaction of soundscape and visualscape leads to enhanced restorative effects.•Perceived restorative environment mediates the effects of sensescapes on quality of life.•The mechanism of visitors' attention restoration holds for different natural contexts.
Nature-based tourism has been widely addressed, yet research on nature-based science tourism, founded on science, scientific knowledge, and/or engagement in scientific research, is still scarce. ...Drawing on tourist motivation, nature-based tourism, special interest tourism, and science tourism, a novel theoretical conceptualization of nature-based science tourism was developed. The framework identified three categories of science tourism with intensifying levels of tourists' interest in scientific knowledge and tourist engagement: tourism based on scientific knowledge, tourism with scientific adventure or volunteering, and scientific research tourism. In the empirical part, the framework was applied to Seili Island, Finland, and tourist motivation to nature-based science tourism was examined through a survey (n = 518). According to the results, tourists were interested in science and nature-based science tourism products, especially guided tours involving scientific interpretation, but also in intensive scientific excursions. Learning was a dominant motivation, but enjoying nature and escape and relaxation were also significant. When moving from guided tours to more intensive scientific excursions, motivations diversified; besides learning, other tourist motivations also need to be addressed in developing nature-based science tourism experiences. The study contributes to nature-based tourism and underresearched science tourism literature and provides practical implications for developing nature-based tourism.
This paper illustrates how community-based ecotourism (CBET) is a site of experiential learning which may encourage transformative learning for visitors. An experiential CBET curriculum is identified ...which is centred on ecotourists' nature, adventure and cultural experiences. In this curriculum, Nature Shock, Adventure Shock and Culture Shock serve as Concrete Experiences in Kolb's 1984. Experiential learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall experiential learning cycle, and may potentially act as disorienting dilemmas to stimulate transformative learning. These three types of disorienting dilemmas are discussed with reference to literature on wildlife and nature tourism, adventure tourism and outdoor education, and international volunteer tourism, respectively. Three empirical case studies of CBET in Southeast Asia are used to provide context to the discussion. Finally, the paper provides an elaboration of six pedagogical themes pertaining to how the transformative learning of visitors to CBET projects might be enhanced.
The impact of weather on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism has received increasing attention from the research community during the past ten years. This article synthesizes the results of ...those inquiries, categorizing their predominant themes and identifying knowledge gaps. One hundred eighty-four weather-related articles drawn from a cross-section of international journals served as the foundation for this work. The research synthesis identified three recurring themes: weather-related variables that influence outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism, the importance of geographic research context, and prevailing activity types. A gap analysis indicated an abundance of underinvestigated topics in weather-related studies in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. The article concludes with recommendations for future weather-related studies in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism developed from the predominant themes uncovered in the research synthesis and research needs discovered in the gap analysis.
This study aims to explore the key push travel motivation factors from Dann’s theory of push and pull motivation and analysed the influence of tourists’ socio-demographic variables on push travel ...motivation factors to visit protected areas (PAs). Data were collected via a structured questionnaire from 435 randomly selected tourists visiting Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park (HiP). Data analyses employed descriptive statistics to generate frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations using IBM's SPSS version 28 software. Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon test implemented in Stata software version 15 was employed. The findings revealed that the key tourists push factors are “relaxation and family togetherness”. The study further indicates that demographic variables such as “nationality, residency, employment status and age” have significant effects on tourists’ overall push factors (i.e., relaxation, social interaction, family togetherness, and prestige motivation). Based on the findings, the study made recommendations directed to the park management focusing on promoting and sustaining activities that address the key push motivation factors.
•The study analyses the importance of landscape for nature-based tourism business.•Nature-based tourism companies (NBTs) and general service companies are compared.•Firms assess that their business ...increases due to the forest quality improvement.•Landscape beauty is more important for the NBTs than for the other companies.•The interest of companies in participating in PES mechanisms is relatively low.
To promote the growth of nature based tourism in privately owned forest areas, new policy instruments, e.g. Payments for Ecosystem Services, are needed. They could engage private forest owners and nature-based tourism companies to cooperate and support the growth of the sector. We studied the entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards the importance of environmental amenities and assessments of possible improvements in forest landscapes for their business in the framework of proposed Payments for Ecosystem Services mechanism, called Landscape and Recreation Value Trade. In the analyses, we compared the assessments of two groups of companies: core nature-based tourism companies that produce most services for tourists, and general service companies that produce services for both tourists and local people. We collected a data set from an online survey that was sent to representatives of the companies of the Ruka-Kuusamo region, Finland. Core nature-based tourism companies see forest landscape beauty as being more important for their business than do general service companies. In addition, we hypothesized in the questionnaire that the quality of landscape would improve so that the impacts of forest management practices, such as the traces of clear cuttings and intensive site preparation would be less visible in future than today. If the quality improves in the core area of tourism, the activity of the business of the 2 company groups will increase equally. If, however, the quality improves in a wider area, both the number of clients and revenues will increase more for nature-based tourism companies than for general service companies. Finally, related to the implementation of suggested Payments for Ecosystem Services, nature-based tourism companies had both more interest in collecting payments from tourists for a fund for landscape quality improvement and to make a private agreement with forest owners for improving landscape quality. For the policy makers of regions where nature tourism has potential, the following suggestions are given: As attractive landscape is identified as being an important factor for the nature-based tourism business, new types of mechanisms are needed to secure a good quality of this basic resource and the positive development of this sector. As the level of interest in participating in funding and agreements related to Payments for Ecosystem Services can be rather low among entrepreneurs, an incentive mechanism for companies should also be launched. In addition, a collaborative deliberation and communication process is needed for implementing the mechanism.
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