Analyzing Visitors’ Preferences and Evaluation of Satisfaction Based on Different Attributes, with Forest Trails in the Akasawa National Recreational Forest, Central Japan

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.