IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i5p4181-d1080544.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empirical Investigation of the Motivation and Perception of Tourists Visiting the Apuseni Nature Park (Romania) and the Relationship of Tourism and Natural Resources

Author

Listed:
  • Tamás Telbisz

    (Department of Physical Geography, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter Sétány 1/C, 1117 Budapest, Hungary)

  • Zoltán Imecs

    (Department of Geography in Hungarian, Babeş-Bolyai University, Strada Mihail Kogălniceanu, 400347 Cluj Napoca, Romania)

  • András Máthé

    (Department of Geography in Hungarian, Babeş-Bolyai University, Strada Mihail Kogălniceanu, 400347 Cluj Napoca, Romania)

  • László Mari

    (Department of Physical Geography, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter Sétány 1/C, 1117 Budapest, Hungary)

Abstract

As part of an international project, national parks and nature parks established in karst regions are examined, with a primary focus on how local residents, visitors and influential figures (i.e., park managers, mayors) perceive the advantages and disadvantages of a specific park. The study area in this paper is the Apuseni Nature Park (Romania). The main natural resources of this park are: the karst (morphology and hydrology), the forests and the landscape. In order to explore the perception and motivation of tourists visiting the park, a field survey using a convenience sampling strategy was conducted in 2019 and 2021 at eleven sites in the park. The results show that among the motivations, the “search for relaxation” option is the most frequently selected (43%), but “interest in caves” (34%) and “interest in karst terrains” (29%) were also relatively popular. In terms of public support for potential developments, one positive result of the questionnaire is that developments involving sustainability and nature conservation (visitor centre, education trails and viewpoints) enjoy significantly more support than developments that put a strain on the environment (adventure parks and expansion of entertainment facilities). The awareness of geotourism should be improved, but even at the current level it can be said that geotourists are an important segment of the park’s visitors. A careful development of tourism can be recommended for the park, but it must ensure that the principles of sustainability are taken into account during the developments. Given the environmental and economic challenges, strengthening the organization of the park is suggested in order to better protect the threatened natural resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Tamás Telbisz & Zoltán Imecs & András Máthé & László Mari, 2023. "Empirical Investigation of the Motivation and Perception of Tourists Visiting the Apuseni Nature Park (Romania) and the Relationship of Tourism and Natural Resources," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-17, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4181-:d:1080544
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4181/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4181/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Setiawan Priatmoko & Moaaz Kabil & Yitno Purwoko & Lóránt Dénes Dávid, 2021. "Rethinking Sustainable Community-Based Tourism: A Villager’s Point of View and Case Study in Pampang Village, Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Stanislava Pachrová & Petr Chalupa & Eva Janoušková & Alice Šedivá Neckáøová & Leoš Štefka, 2020. "Monitoring of Visitors as a Tool of Protected Areas Management," Academica Turistica - Tourism and Innovation Journal, University of Primorska Press, vol. 13(1), pages 67-79.
    3. Ezebilo, Eugene E. & Mattsson, Leif, 2010. "Socio-economic benefits of protected areas as perceived by local people around Cross River National Park, Nigeria," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 189-193, March.
    4. Michael Getzner, 2010. "Impacts of protected areas on regional sustainable development: the case of the Hohe Tauern national park (Austria)," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(4), pages 419-441.
    5. Janetta Nestorová Dická & Alena Gessert & Lenka Bryndzová & Tamás Telbisz, 2020. "Behavioural Survey of Local Inhabitants’ Views and Attitudes about Slovak Karst National Park in Slovakia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-24, December.
    6. Angels Niñerola & Maria-Victòria Sánchez-Rebull & Ana-Beatriz Hernández-Lara, 2019. "Tourism Research on Sustainability: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, March.
    7. Stanislava Pachrová & Petr Chalupa & Eva Janoušková & Alice Šedivá Neckáøová & Leoš Štefka, 2020. "Monitoring of Visitors as a Tool of Protected Areas Management," Academica Turistica - Tourism and Innovation Journal, University of Primorska Press, vol. 13(1), pages 67-79.
    8. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grigore Vasile Herman & Corina Florina Tătar & Marcu Simion Stașac & Victor Lucian Cosman, 2023. "Exploring the Relationship between Tourist Perception and Motivation at a Museum Attraction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Branko Protić & Bogdan Lukić & Vladimir Popović & Dušan Ristić & Velimir Šećerov & Marija R. Jeftić & Dejan S. Đorđević & Bojan Vračarević, 2024. "Balancing Act: Assessing the Impacts of Winter Tourism on Natural Heritage in Kopaonik National Park and Charting a Sustainable Path Forward," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-30, February.
    3. Ahmed Nuru Zeleke & Tuğba Deniz, 2023. "The Impact of Visitor Profile on Effective Management of Protected Areas: A Case of Atatürk Arboretum," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-11, March.

    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. Zieliński Artur & Marek Aneta & Zwoliński Zbigniew, 2022. "Geotourism Potential of Show Caves in Poland," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 41(3), pages 169-181, September.
    2. Tomi Špindler & Miha Lesjak & Mitja Gorenak, 2022. "Changing Values Through Generations: The Case of Mountain Tourists," Academica Turistica - Tourism and Innovation Journal, University of Primorska Press, vol. 15(1), pages 95-109.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Jovana Brankov & Jasna Micić & Jelena Ćalić & Jelena Kovačević-Majkić & Ranko Milanović & Tamás Telbisz, 2022. "Stakeholders’ Attitudes toward Protected Areas: The Case of Tara National Park (Serbia)," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-25, March.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Thomas Bausch & Tilman Schröder & Verena Tauber & Bernard Lane, 2021. "Sustainable Tourism: The Elephant in the Room," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.
    10. Hellen Ogutu & Youssef El Archi & Lóránt Dénes Dávid, 2023. "Current trends in sustainable organization management: A bibliometric analysis," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 14(1), pages 11-45, March.
    11. Thomas Campagnaro & Giovanni Trentanovi & Tommaso Sitzia, 2018. "Identifying Habitat Type Conservation Priorities under the Habitats Directive: Application to Two Italian Biogeographical Regions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-20, April.
    12. Susan C. Cook-Patton & C. Ronnie Drever & Bronson W. Griscom & Kelley Hamrick & Hamilton Hardman & Timm Kroeger & Pablo Pacheco & Shyla Raghav & Martha Stevenson & Chris Webb & Samantha Yeo & Peter W., 2021. "Protect, manage and then restore lands for climate mitigation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(12), pages 1027-1034, December.
    13. Gregor Schwerhoff & Ottmar Edenhofer & Marc Fleurbaey, 2020. "Taxation Of Economic Rents," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 398-423, April.
    14. Ziqi Meng & Jinwei Dong & Erle C. Ellis & Graciela Metternicht & Yuanwei Qin & Xiao-Peng Song & Sara Löfqvist & Rachael D. Garrett & Xiaopeng Jia & Xiangming Xiao, 2023. "Post-2020 biodiversity framework challenged by cropland expansion in protected areas," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 758-768, July.
    15. Yijing Su & Li Cong & Geoffrey Wall, 2023. "Tourism Knowledge Domains of Chinese and International Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-25, June.
    16. Riaz Tabassum & Selama Aslam Izah & Nor Normaziah Mohd & Hassan Ahmad Fahmi Sheikh, 2024. "Meaningful Review of Existing Trends, Expansion, and Future Directions of Green Bond Research: A Bibliometric Approach," Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series, Sciendo, vol. 34(1), pages 1-36, March.
    17. Adam Pawlewicz & Wojciech Gotkiewicz & Katarzyna Brodzińska & Katarzyna Pawlewicz & Bartosz Mickiewicz & Paweł Kluczek, 2022. "Organic Farming as an Alternative Maintenance Strategy in the Opinion of Farmers from Natura 2000 Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-22, March.
    18. Abdulrahman Altassan, 2023. "Sustainability of Heritage Villages through Eco-Tourism Investment (Case Study: Al-Khabra Village, Saudi Arabia)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-21, April.
    19. Rachel Nichols & Satoshi Yamazaki & Sarah Jennings, 2021. "How did a network of marine protected areas impact adjacent fisheries? Evidence from Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(1), pages 119-142, January.
    20. Bhavna Thawani & Tushar Panigrahi & Meena Bhatia, 2024. "Eleven years of integrated reporting: a bibliometric analysis," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(4), pages 666-684, December.

    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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4181-:d:1080544. 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.