Environmental awareness, interests and motives of botanic gardens visitors: Implications for interpretive practice

Abstract

Botanic gardens attract a wide range of domestic and international tourists, as well as regular visitors from their local areas. As both conservation and education are among the objectives of botanic gardens, they are potentially well-placed to offer community education about conservation, to engender pro-conservation attitudes, and to encourage the public to support conservation efforts. In order to inform the development of appropriate interpretive strategies targeting conservation issues, information is needed regarding visitors’ existing conservation awareness, interests and motives for visiting. This paper addresses this need by describing the environmental awareness, interests and motivations of 150 visitors to the Mt. Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. Gardens visitors were found to be less interested in and committed to conservation issues, and less motivated to learn, than visitors to other free-choice learning settings such as museums, zoos, aquariums, heritage sites, natural areas and wildlife tourism activities. The implications for interpretive practice in botanic gardens are discussed.