Visitor responses to environmental interpretation in protected areas in Vietnam: a motivation-based segmentation analysis

Abstract

Environmental interpretation is regarded as an effective soft management strategy for educating visitors and managing their impacts on protected areas. Only limited research has been conducted on visitors' views on environmental interpretation in protected areas in the rapidly developing destinations of South-East Asia, with particular gaps in understanding different visitor groups. This article seeks to fill this gap in the context of Vietnam by examining visitor responses to services for environmental interpretation in one of the country's largest national parks. The research employed Importance-Performance Analysis and subsequent motivation-based visitor segmentation based on 237 sets of pre and post-visit questionnaires distributed by the authors as self-complete questionnaires at the entry and exit gateway to the national park. The findings highlight that site interpreters were considered the most important service providers, while displays at the museum and videos were identified as important but low performing. A number of differences between motivation-based visitor groups as well as some culturally-anchored response patterns emerged which highlighted the need for park management to consider different visitor groups; not only in terms of their motivations to visit but also their cultural backgrounds when designing, investing maintenance funding, and evaluating interpretive services.

Market Segmentation by Motivations in Ecotourism: Application in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, Spain

“…The other two segments, "nature" and "multiple motives", present similar characteristics to other previously found segments. The "nature" segment, with high nature motivation, resembles the groups found by other authors [66,69,70,73]. The "multiple motives" segment, with several motivations at the same time, is similar to previously found groups [66,70,71].…”

“…Likewise, the "nature" segment of this study is similar to the "naturalistic" segment of Barić et al [69]. The nature segment of this study is also similar to segment 4 (nature and landscape) of Taczanowska et al [70]. In addition, the nature segment of this study is similar to the nature travelers segment of Constantin et al [73].…”

“…On the other hand, the "multiple motives" segment of this study is similar to the "multiple motives" segment of Cordente-Rodríguez et al [66], who found a group with various motivations. It is also similar to segment 2 (contemplative tourists and nonconsumers) of Taczanowska et al [70], with various motivations for the visit. It is similar to the "enthusiasts" segment reported by Phan and Schott [71], with a high level of motivation in all factors.…”

“…Another study on ecotourism is that carried out by academics Taczanowska et al [70] in Kasprowy Wierch in the Tatra National Park (Poland). They identified four groups of visitors: The first group was motivated by recreation and mountain observation and considered the other visiting motivations to be irrelevant.…”

Educational Mobile Game as an Interpretive Media Tool

“…(Pendit, U.C., Zaibon, S.B. & Abu Bakar, J., 2015;Linh Phan & Schott, 2019;Tȃtȃrusanu, 2021). The Kokdiang Fun Run mobile game in this study can be classified as a non-personal interpretive media.…”