Spatial analysis of visitor preferences in the outdoor recreational niche of Mediterranean cultural landscapes

Abstract

SUMMARY Many landscapes contain traditional rural systems of high environmental value and are attractive for cultural tourism, while the traditional activities indicate sensible use of some marginal areas, whether protected or not. Recreational activities and tourism constitute new uses lending cultural and economic interest. To maintain both rural and recreational uses of landscape, links need to be established with the local population, which has a tendency to abandon such rural areas. In this study, landscapes in Central Spain were categorized using variables which described their structure and associated natural and cultural characteristics. Visitors were categorized by surveying their visit preferences. Multivariate analyses of the two sets of data determined the degree of correspondence between the type of visitors and what the landscape could ‘offer’, considering perception, preferences, potential interest in specific landscapes (‘outdoor recreational niche’) and degree of satisfaction with regard to the natural and rural characteristics of the territory. The resulting thematic maps constitute useful tools for developing planning and environmental management strategies.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 56 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.