Motivation and Preferences of Visitors in the Bohemian Paradise UNESCO Global Geopark

Abstract

There are some localities in the Bohemian Paradise Geopark that suffer from temporal overtourism in the high season. On the other hand, more than half of the geopark is not so often visited by tourists, although very attractive geosites can be found there too. In the most visited localities, nature is damaged due to overloading of the tourist infrastructure, while elsewhere there is pressure driven by municipalities to increase the number of tourists. For this reason, we organized a large questionnaire survey in summer 2020, which aimed to reveal the motivation of visitors of the geopark and their preferences regarding the places visited. The questionnaire combined several research methods: graphic scales, qualitative open questions, mental map, etc. The analysis of visitors’ answers shows that most of them cannot be described as geotourists, i.e., tourists who are primarily interested in geology and conceive their holiday as a sightseeing stay. Many tourists like to stay in nature without an educational element. We also found that there is a higher proportion of ecotourists and geotourists in less-visited geosites because they appreciate even lesser-known localities and crowds of tourists rather than repel them. The question for the future is, therefore, whether the geopark should strive for greater promotion of lesser-known localities, which would attract even mainstream tourists, or, conversely, to protect these geosites, it should promote only the most visited localities (which are already damaged).

Benefit Segmentation of Tourists to Geosites and Its Implications for Sustainable Development of Geotourism in the Southern Lake Tana Region, Ethiopia

“…Rural tourists are attracted to rural areas in Madeira by quite generic features" (p. 828). In addition, Drápela et al [82] studied the motivation and preferences of visitors in the Bohemian Paradise UNESCO Global Geopark and found that most visitors were not primarily interested in geology. They indicated that many of the visitors preferred to stay in nature without an educational element.…”

Classification and Quantification of Urban Geodiversity and Its Intersection with Cultural Heritage

“…The map is available at https://zywaplaneta.pl/po-poznaniu/ on the geoeducational website maintained by the author, which is viewed by readers that describe themselves in the communications with the author as teachers, parents of children interested in Earth science, amateur collectors, sport tourists and students. Given that many geotourists come from these groups (Drápela et al 2021 ), the website can be used to measure the geotouristic potential of geodiversity sites. Counts were recorded from March 2021 to August 2021, starting during the COVID-19 lockdown.…”

Exploring Causal Relationships for Geoheritage Interpretation — Variable Effects of Cenozoic Volcanism in Central European Sedimentary Tablelands

“…The name of Bohemian Paradise (Český ráj in Czech) is unofficial and was likely introduced in the nineteenth century by visitors to the spa resort of Lázně Sedmihorky, located at the foot of a sandstone rock city of Hruboskalsko (Kubaliková 2016;Drápela et al 2021). Among the most popular places for visitors were the ruins of Trosky castle, where one of the medieval castle towers was converted into a viewing tower.…”

“…Until now, it is the only Czech geopark in the network of UNESCO Global Geoparks. The geopark covers a much larger area than the Protected Landscape Area, initially more than 700 km 2 , later expanded to 833 km 2 (Drápela et al 2021). However, despite various efforts to popularize different parts of the geopark, whose geoheritage also includes important sites of Palaeozoic volcanism (Migoń and Pijet-Migoń 2020), tourist visitations remain very unevenly distributed in space and strongly concentrated in sandstone rock cities.…”

“…Geoparks considered in this paper follow this wide spectrum of interpretation strategies, although -as a general observation -causal relationships between volcanism and the host sedimentary rocks are rather seldom explored. This may be related to the common belief that geological history and landform evolution are themes difficult to absorb by the majority of visitors (see Drápela et al 2021), whereas the expected simplification does not allow one to develop complicated stories easily, using limited number of words (e.g., on panels) (Doucek and Zelenka 2018), unless these stories are told in person during a guided tour.…”