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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.

Tourism and landscape are interdependent concepts. Nature- and culture-based tourism are now quite well developed activities and can constitute an excellent way of exploiting the natural resources of certain areas, and should therefore be considered as key objectives in landscape planning and management in a growing number of countries. All of this calls for careful evaluation of the effects of tourism on the territory. This article focuses on an integrated spatial method for landscape analysis aimed at quantifying the relationship between preferences of visitors and landscape features. The spatial expression of the model relating types of leisure and recreational preferences to the potential capacity of the landscape to meet them involves a set of maps showing degrees of potential visitor satisfaction. The method constitutes a useful tool for the design of tourism planning and management strategies, with landscape conservation as a reference.