The spatial cognition of a forest landscape and its relationship with tourist viewing intention in different walking passage stages

Abstract

Abstract Background Understanding which types of landscapes are attractive to tourists during forest walking and which factors affect tourists viewing intentions, plays a significant role in the drafts by forest landscape planners and designers. Main purpose To clarify the spatial cognition characteristics and differences when tourists appreciation the forest landscape and explore the factors that affect tourists viewing intentions at different walking passage stages. Methods This study used one-way ANOVA and Spearman s rho correlation analysis to statistically analyze the data and performed a multiple linear regression analysis in SPSS 23.0 to establish a model of tourists viewing intention for each walking passage. Main results 1. There are differences, at different walking passage stages, in the spatial cognition of forest landscapes and the spatial cognition of different types of forest landscapes by tourists gradually changes. 2. There are differences in the factors that affect tourists viewing intentions of forest landscapes in different walking passage stages. Even with the same spatial cognition parameters, the contribution of tourists viewing intention differs in different walking passage. In different walking passages, visitors viewing intentions of broad-leaved forest space are significantly lower than those of other landscape spaces, especially in the early and middle walking passages. 3. As the forest walking experience unfolds, tourists experience in the middle passage and late passage stages of the forest landscape have a greater impact on their overall viewing intention. Through the above analysis, we suggest that in the planning and design of forest walking spaces, landscape elements or landscape facilities should be properly matched according to the spatial cognitive characteristics of the scenes in the different walking passages. The above suggestions will improve tourists viewing intentions of scenes, especially in-forest landscape spaces with a background of forest elements.