IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i18p6746-d414403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health and Well-Being in Protected Natural Areas—Visitors’ Satisfaction in Three Different Protected Natural Area Categories in Catalonia, Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Estela Inés Farías-Torbidoni

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup d’Investigació Social i Educativa de l’Activitat Física i de l’Esport (GISEAFE), INEFC, Universidad de Barcelona (UB), 08038 Barcelona, Spain)

  • Sebastià Mas-Alòs

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup de Recerca Moviment Humà, Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain)

  • Gonzalo Gil-Moreno-de-Mora

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup de Recerca en Desenvolupament i Innovació de la Condició Física i l’Exercici (DICFE), INEFC, Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain)

  • Pere Lavega-Burgués

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup d’Investigació en Acció Motriu (GIAM), INEFC, Universidad de Lleida, 25192 Lleida, Spain)

  • Marta Castañer

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup d’Observació de la Motricitat i l’Esport, Innovació en Dissenys Observacionals i Mixed Methods Research, INEFC, Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain)

  • Eloisa Lorente-Catalán

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup d’Investigació sobre l’Activitat Física i la seva Didàctica per a l’Educació, la Cultura i el Benestar (DECUBIAF), INEFC, Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain)

  • Jordi Seguí-Urbaneja

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup d’Investigació Social i Educativa de l’Activitat Física i de l’Esport (GISEAFE), INEFC, Universidad de Barcelona (UB), 08038 Barcelona, Spain)

  • Enric Lacasa-Claver

    (Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC), Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain
    Grup de Recerca en Sistemes Complexos i Esport, INEFC, Universidad de Lleida (UdL), 25192 Lleida, Spain)

Abstract

Protected natural areas (PNAs) can be a source of health and well-being, but little research has been carried out regarding outcomes in terms of satisfaction (the difference between motivations and benefits). Inspired by previous research that examines the motivations and benefits perceived by visitors to various PNAs in Canada, and based on importance–performance analysis (IPA) and service quality gap (GAP) analysis theory, the aim of this study was to identify the outcomes generated by protected areas in terms of satisfaction, especially with regard to the PNAs’ individual protection categories. The study was based on survey data from visitors ( n = 360) to three PNAs in Catalonia: one national park, one natural park and one periurban park. The results indicate that anticipated environmental, psychological, physical and social benefits were of major personal value in choosing to visit a PNA. The results indicate that, generally, visitors were satisfied with regard to the benefits anticipated. Differences between parks in this respect could be explained in part by sociodemographic factors and visitors’ behavior. The results are discussed in terms of their applicability and how they relate to the role of PNAs in the promotion of visitors’ health and well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Estela Inés Farías-Torbidoni & Sebastià Mas-Alòs & Gonzalo Gil-Moreno-de-Mora & Pere Lavega-Burgués & Marta Castañer & Eloisa Lorente-Catalán & Jordi Seguí-Urbaneja & Enric Lacasa-Claver, 2020. "Health and Well-Being in Protected Natural Areas—Visitors’ Satisfaction in Three Different Protected Natural Area Categories in Catalonia, Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-19, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6746-:d:414403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6746/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6746/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. M. Watson & Nigel Dudley & Daniel B. Segan & Marc Hockings, 2014. "The performance and potential of protected areas," Nature, Nature, vol. 515(7525), pages 67-73, November.
    2. Margarita Triguero-Mas & David Donaire-Gonzalez & Edmund Seto & Antònia Valentín & Graham Smith & David Martínez & Glòria Carrasco-Turigas & Daniel Masterson & Magdalena Van den Berg & Albert Ambròs &, 2017. "Living Close to Natural Outdoor Environments in Four European Cities: Adults’ Contact with the Environments and Physical Activity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-21, September.
    3. Lucy E. Keniger & Kevin J. Gaston & Katherine N. Irvine & Richard A. Fuller, 2013. "What are the Benefits of Interacting with Nature?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-23, March.
    4. Andrew Balmford & Jonathan M H Green & Michael Anderson & James Beresford & Charles Huang & Robin Naidoo & Matt Walpole & Andrea Manica, 2015. "Walk on the Wild Side: Estimating the Global Magnitude of Visits to Protected Areas," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-6, February.
    5. Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer & Valeria Tadini & Boris Salak & Karolina Taczanowska & Andrzej Tucki & Giulio Senes, 2019. "Do Protected Areas Contribute to Health and Well-Being? A Cross-Cultural Comparison," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-18, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sara Silva & Luís Filipe Silva & António Vieira, 2023. "Protected Areas and Nature-Based Tourism: A 30-Year Bibliometric Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-25, July.
    2. Nguyen, Minh-Hoang, 2023. "Investigating urban residents' involvement in biodiversity conservation in protected areas: Empirical evidence from Vietnam," Thesis Commons z2hjv, Center for Open Science.
    3. Weaver, David B. & Lawton, Laura J., 2017. "A new visitation paradigm for protected areas," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 140-146.
    4. Minh-Hoang Nguyen & Thomas E. Jones, 2022. "Building eco-surplus culture among urban residents as a novel strategy to improve finance for conservation in protected areas," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Arbieu, Ugo & Grünewald, Claudia & Martín-López, Berta & Schleuning, Matthias & Böhning-Gaese, Katrin, 2018. "Large mammal diversity matters for wildlife tourism in Southern African Protected Areas: Insights for management," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PC), pages 481-490.
    6. Lishan Xu & Changlin Ao & Baoqi Liu & Zhenyu Cai, 2023. "Ecotourism and sustainable development: a scientometric review of global research trends," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 2977-3003, April.
    7. Roux, Dirk J. & Smith, M. Kyle S. & Smit, Izak P.J. & Freitag, Stefanie & Slabbert, Liandi & Mokhatla, Mohlamatsane M. & Hayes, Jessica & Mpapane, Nelsiwe P., 2020. "Cultural ecosystem services as complex outcomes of people–nature interactions in protected areas," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    8. Nguyen, Minh-Hoang & Vuong, Quan-Hoang, 2020. "Evaluation of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets: The international collaboration trilemma in interdisciplinary research," OSF Preprints 84j76, Center for Open Science.
    9. Hasita Bhammar & Wendy Li & Christel Maria Moller Molina & Valerie Hickey & Jo Pendry & Urvashi Narain, 2021. "Framework for Sustainable Recovery of Tourism in Protected Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-10, March.
    10. Teresa Romanillos & Roser Maneja & Diego Varga & Llorenç Badiella & Martí Boada, 2018. "Protected Natural Areas: In Sickness and in Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, October.
    11. Chung, Min Gon & Dietz, Thomas & Liu, Jianguo, 2018. "Global relationships between biodiversity and nature-based tourism in protected areas," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(PA), pages 11-23.
    12. Chidakel, Alexander & Child, Brian & Muyengwa, Shylock, 2021. "Evaluating the economics of park-tourism from the ground-up: Leakage, multiplier effects, and the enabling environment at South Luangwa National Park, Zambia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Qiang Wen & Haiqiang Liu & Jinyuan Chen & Huiyao Ye & Zeyu Pan, 2023. "Evaluation of Satisfaction with the Built Environment of University Buildings under the Epidemic and Its Impact on Student Anxiety," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Martina Zorić & Jelena Farkić & Marko Kebert & Emina Mladenović & Dragić Karaklić & Gorana Isailović & Saša Orlović, 2022. "Developing Forest Therapy Programmes Based on the Health Benefits of Terpenes in Dominant Tree Species in Tara National Park (Serbia)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-15, May.
    15. Chunrong Mi & Liang Ma & Mengyuan Yang & Xinhai Li & Shai Meiri & Uri Roll & Oleksandra Oskyrko & Daniel Pincheira-Donoso & Lilly P. Harvey & Daniel Jablonski & Barbod Safaei-Mahroo & Hanyeh Ghaffari , 2023. "Global Protected Areas as refuges for amphibians and reptiles under climate change," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    16. Konrad Reuß & Christopher Huth, 2024. "Redefining Urban Recreation: A Demand Analysis for Urban Year-Round Green Exercise," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(11), pages 1-10, November.
    17. Ming-Kuang Chung & Dau-Jye Lu & Bor-Wen Tsai & Kuei-Tien Chou, 2019. "Assessing Effectiveness of PPGIS on Protected Areas by Governance Quality: A Case Study of Community-Based Monitoring in Wu-Wei-Kang Wildlife Refuge, Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-20, August.
    18. Tingting Zhang & Dan He & Tian Kuang & Ke Chen, 2022. "Effect of Rural Human Settlement Environment around Nature Reserves on Farmers’ Well-Being: A Field Survey Based on 1002 Farmer Households around Six Nature Reserves in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-18, May.
    19. Aleksandra Kosanic & Karsten Lambers & Stamatia Galata & Katja Kothieringer & Angelika Abderhalden, 2023. "Importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services for Cultural Identity and Wellbeing in the Lower Engadine, Switzerland," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Migle Baceviciene & Rasa Jankauskiene, 2022. "The Mediating Effect of Nature Restorativeness, Stress Level, and Nature Connectedness in the Association between Nature Exposure and Quality of Life," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-15, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6746-:d:414403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.