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Abstract |
The systematic and spontaneous customer feedback from nature tourism customers is studied in the context of social capital created by social welfare services within the national park, especially the visitor centre services. The feedback is considered as an indicator of social carrying capacity. A model has been developed for assessing the impact of different options for developing services in the visitor centre or giving priority to them. The reliability of the model is studied in relation to different customer profiles. As a special case we study on site the customer’s reactions and attitudes about a key responsibility issue in nature tourism development– responsibility of resources. A ”Partnership in Management” experiment was created in Koli National Park, in Finland, where a local supporting association (NGO) produced 18 months visitor services in visitor centre in co-operation with the official park management organisation. According to the customer feedback the majority of visitors considered this arrangement as a very positive idea. They were also willing to pay the marginal costs, which they have caused, when using the services of the association. |
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