Research On Factors Influencing Urban Forest Recreational Sites Image

Urban forest is an important part of the urban ecosystem. Development of urban forest is an important way to promote urban scientific development, satisfy ecological demand of people and improve urban competitiveness. With the continuous improvement of living level, the demand for leisure and recreation are increasing. Due to the convenient transportation and suitable resource type, urban forest has been a preferred region for recreational activities of urban residents. Therefore, development of urban forest recreation has become one of the main contents of operation of modern urban forest. Perceived image is the bridge between the recreational sites and the visitors of urban forest. It is also the base of image positioning and promotion of urban forest recreational sites, and development of recreational products.Based on literature review, theoretical discussion and empirical research, this paper explored the influencing factors of urban forest recreational sites perceived image. The main achievements and conclusions of this paper are as follows.(1) The influencing factors of urban forest recreational sites perceived imageBase on the definition of certain concepts, the paper defined urban forest recreational sites perceived image as an overall, abstract and general subjective perception and evaluation of the visitors. The formation process of urban forest recreation perceived image are discussed, Which are influenced by three factors, including individual factors and experience factors of the visitors and the situation factors of recreational sites.(2) Analysis of individual factors influencing the urban forest recreational sites perceived imageFirstly, by canonical correlation analysis, the relationship of forest value orientations and service demands of forest recreation was discussed. The conclusion is that there are five forest value orientations, which are ecological, healthy, cultural, product and negative orientations. There are three service demands of forest recreation, which are basic, additional and individual demands. The residents with different forest value orientations have different service demands of forest recreation. Secondly, based on questionnaire survey and individual interview, forest visitors’demographic characters, recreational motivations, recreational behavior characteristics and the opinion of urban forest recreational sites were analyzed.(3) Analysis of experience factors influencing the urban forest recreational sites perceived imageUtilizing the method of structural equation modeling, this paper built a model of urban forest visitors’satisfaction and conducted an empirical research. The result suggests that the perceived value has significant and positive influence to form the satisfactory experience of visitors. Landscape resource perception, facilities and services perception, functional effect perception, social effect perception and emotional effect perception are important factors influencing the visitors’s perceived value. Emotional effect perception and landscape resource perception are the key factors in influencing visitors’ satisfaction. Functional effect perception and social effect perception have positive effects on visitors’perceived value, while facilities and services perception is believed as an affordable factor.(4) Analysis of situation factors influencing the urban forest recreational sites perceived imageThis paper argued the four quality elements of urban forest recreational sites, which are landscape, environment, facility, and management/service. Based on individual interview and field investigation, the vistors gave a better evaluation to the landscape and environment quality of the case site, but a relatively low evaluation to the facility and management/service quality. The quality management problems of urban forest recreational sites are analyzed and several corresponding measures are given in this part of the paper.The innovation in this study are mainly as follows. The discussion of the urban forest recreational sites perceived image enriched the theory system of ubran forest recreation and tourism destination image. This paper presented new understanding of the relationship between forest value orientations and urban forest recreational demands, and the formation mechanism of urban forest visitors’ satisfaction. But further studies are needed on the field of influencing mechanism of urban forest recreational sites perceived image, urban forest recreational benefits, urban forest recreational sites quality evaluation system, and so on.