Preferences of Recreationists for Vegetation Types in Okinawa, Japan

抄録

An increasing number of tourists from both within and outside of Japan are attracted to the rich natural resources in Okinawa, as result recreation has become potentially an important source of income to the local economy. Previous survey show that tourists are particularly interested in outdoor recreation in the context of natural surroundings of Okinawa. However, few studies have analyzed the relationships between landscapes preferences for vegetation types on different landscapes and recreation activities. We conducted interview survey to explore public preferences toward various landscapes for various recreational uses in Okinawa. We designed a photo-questionnaire in order to identify desirable surrounding vegetation for each recreation use. A total of 93 survey responses were collected and a non-parametric analyzes (chi-square test, gamma coefficient) was applied to examine the effect of socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, employment status, income, education level, birthplace, current residential address, the number of family members) on their preferences. Our results show that Pasture landscape, Coastal forest and Mangrove forest were the most appreciated for recreational activities in this study. Forest landscapes were ranked the highest for nature observation and marine sports. For the other recreational activities, the three top ranked landscapes included a mixture of an open landscape such as pasture and forests. Our results also show that preference for a particular landscape depends on the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent. In summary, it can be concluded that both the type of recreational activity and the socio-demographic characteristics of recreationists, significantly influence their landscape preferences.