Abstract
For forest park managers and designers, it is very important to provide forest trails and high–quality forest landscapes that meet visitor’s needs. In this study, based on demographic characteristics, our main purpose is to analyze whether the preferences of visitors for different trails differ, and to discuss whether forest park visitors’ satisfaction is affected when preferences for choosing trails change, mainly in order to improve knowledge about visitors’ needs for forest walking spaces. Through this analysis, we can aid in the planning and management of forest parks to improve visitors’ experiences. We mainly consider five attributes, namely, sex, age, number of visitors, number of visits and duration of stay in the park, in a questionnaire, and use the Kruskal–Wallis Test and Mann–Whitney U Test to analyze multigroup data in “SPSS for Windows”. The results are as follows: (1) Visitors with different attributes exhibit significant differences in terms of their choices of forest trails and the evaluation of visitor satisfaction in the duration of stay. (2) The correlation analysis showed that trail condition factors, such as the degree of difficulty and facility status, affect the satisfaction evaluation of tourists on many levels. In addition, the number of visits by visitors is negatively correlated with the preference for a forest trail based on recreational indicators. (3) Compared to visitors who stay in the forest for a short amount of time, visitors who remain in the forest for longer have a higher satisfaction level. Based on these results, we recommend that parks consider the number of visits (visiting experience) and the duration of stays in the forest when planning walking routes to more effectively plan forest park trails.
Highlights
In traditional forestry, the value of forests is mainly reflected in the economic benefits from the direct use of wood
(2) We used previous studies to analyze the different attributes of visitors, given that the above test results show that the data set of the survey follows a normal distribution [11,70]
People over 70 years old are similar to people 10–20 years old in that most visitors come to the forest park for “forest bathing”
Summary
In traditional forestry, the value of forests is mainly reflected in the economic benefits from the direct use of wood. In recent decades, people’s understanding of and demand for forests have undergone subtle changes [1]. The health and fitness function, recreational value, and landscape appreciation gained from forest visits have attracted increasing attention [2,3,4,5]. Previous studies have shown that walking in a forest can alleviate stress caused by personal work or activities, and the decompression effect caused by different forest conditions changes stress levels [12,13,14,15]. A forest can contribute to recovery from health conditions [16]. Patients who can see trees have shorter recovery periods than those who cannot [17]
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