Taking into account the views of visitors as a tool for urban park development: Тhe case of Elagin park in Saint Petersburg

Abstract

Goal: to develop a framework for customer insight for urban parks that allows to elicit common use patterns as well as needs of various customer segments to increase park management effectiveness. Methodology: in the example of the Elagin Park in St. Petersburg, we show that customer insight by means of principal component analysis and cluster analysis gives possibility to identify non-obvious behavioral patterns of park visitors as well as segment the park visitors. We test our framework by using primary data on 701 respondents, collected by means of CAWI-survey. Findings: the derived segments differ from those which urban parks traditionally consider. The identified behavior patterns and needs of these segments show possible directions for revising the development of the park. Originality and contribution of the authors: this study demonstrates the possibilities of quantitative analysis in determining directions for the development of city parks by the example of on Elagin Park in St. Petersburg, Russia. This fills the gaps in research on managerial approaches in the contemporary urban park development.