The purest of human pleasures: the characteristics and motivations of garden visitors in Great Britain

Abstract

The practice of visiting gardens has received little research attention in the international tourism research literature, compared with other types of attraction. Globally, garden visiting is a widespread activity, as suggested by the existence of garden visiting schemes, the popularity of garden visiting-based holidays, and the promotion of gardens in local, regional and national tourism development strategies. Great Britain, where garden visits amount to about 16 million each year, is characterised as a nation of garden lovers, and the garden visiting sector is significant in terms of the continued growth in recorded visitor numbers since the 1970s. In an attempt to redress the paucity of research on garden visiting and to highlight the significance and complexities of the sector, the findings of a survey on garden visitors are reported. The paper presents the characteristics, behaviour and motivation of a sample of 546 visitors to 13 gardens in Great Britain. In the light of the empirical findings, a range of implications relating to demand for garden visiting is discussed.