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Abstract |
National park visitation can have a considerable economic impact in rural areas. It is valuable to understand the factors, which explain the interest and use of tourism services in rural communities in the vicinity of national parks. The aim of this study were to analyse if there were visitor groups whose intention to use the services differed and what kinds of services were the most interesting for these visitor groups. The study focused on the association between the visitor segments based on service use intention, and background factors such as attitudes towards country-side in general, and visitors’ socioeconomic background. Furthermore, the relation between visitor segments and visit intentions and satisfaction were studied. We examined these topics in two regions in Finland, where tourism industry is not a strong economic actor at the present. The data was collected in two national parks, Seitseminen and Linnansaari, in Central and Eastern Finland. The number of responses was 554, and the response rate was 68. Preliminary results show that national park visitors can be divided into two main groups considering the interest in using tourism services. First part of park visitors were outdoor recreation oriented and interested to use non-motorized or motorized outdoor activities such as fishing tours, nature studying excursions and snowmobile safaris. The other part of the park visitors was ‘general tourists’ who were interested mainly in tourism services such as accommodation and restaurants, etc. The visitor groups differed with respect their intention to visit the park and the region, countryside attitudes and socioeconomic background variables. The results of this study may help tourism enterprises in surrounding rural communities to find the right clientele for their services and products. For the park managers this information is valuable when planning the future management policies and actions. The understanding and recognition of visitors’ overall needs, when visiting the park and the surrounding countryside, is also needed by actors such as municipality decision makers and inhabitants of rural communities. |
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