This dissertation is an investigation of visitor experiences in the Screen Gallery at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), in Melbourne. This thesis argues that visitors’ interaction with moving image art can yield expressions of agency which not only enrich the experience of visiting a new museum, but also find application beyond an institutionalised environment as a praxis for negotiating the conditions of everyday life. I term the articulation of this praxis a politics of movement. (For complete abstract open document).

The National Park Service strives to connect the natural and cultural resources located within its national parks to the visitors that experience them. These connections must be on personal, meaningful levels to fulfill the agency mission. Within this thesis, an analytical framework entitled the Mission and Meanings Triad Model (MMTM) is proposed to examine the process of "meaning formulation" in a national park setting. The MMTM takes into account the interdependent nature of three mission-driven factors: the park's resources, interpretation, and the visitor experience. An audience-centered perspective is emphasized within the model to ensure that the end result is the meaningful connection itself, rather than merely an "interpretive opportunity." To illustrate the MMTM, an analysis is undertaken of Crater Lake National Park and its interpretive offerings during the summer 2013 and winter 2014 seasons. Through this field and document analysis, multiple recommendations regarding the improvement of interpretive components are suggested.

<div>The rising inactive lifestyle highlights the need to find efficient ways to tackle this worldwide lousy habit. Conventionally, polices of resolving healthy issues such as smoking and overeating focus on providing regulations and information, drawing on the assumption that people will change behavior when they consciously realize the harms and benefits. However, policy interventions have only shown limited success. On the other side, nudging, which assumes people act subliminally and aims to steer people in the right direction without limiting their freedom of choice, is suggested as a promising approach in lessening healthy issues. However, nudging interventions have not received sufficient attention in research so far, especially with regards to walkable designs that lead people to intend to walk instead of taking motor vehicles. </div><div><br></div><div>To bridge this gap, innovatively, the present study incorporates nudging techniques into walkability design. Nudging techniques include priming, salience, and norms. Priming is a phenomenon whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance. The present study primed participants with walking shoes in advance, expecting they have higher intention in walking in later experiments. Salience bias predisposes individuals to focus on items that are more prominent or emotionally striking and ignore those that are unremarkable. In order to generate salience bias, sidewalks of a street view on a black-and-white sketch were highlighted with colors. Then, the study displays the sketch with colored sidewalks to participants, expecting those with salience bias have a higher intention to walk. Norms are typical patterns of behavior, generally accompanied by the expectation that people will behave according to the pattern. The norm in this study delivered the information that most tourists are walking, expecting a participant who received the information will act consistently with the majority. </div><div><br></div><div>The research is based on a carefully designed online questionnaire with scenario-based experiments where participants imagined to be tourists. Research results reveal: 1) priming with walking shoes has significant effects on inspiring people to walk, 2) salient sidewalks nudge people to walk and warm colors like red even have more potential in encouraging walking, and 3) descriptive norms have potent effects on nudging walking, especially when added with identification information. Further, three mediators were identified to bridge the effect of salience on walking intention, namely visibility, excitement, and enjoyment. Visibility represents how noticeable the sidewalks are. Excitement indicates colored and un-colored sidewalks bring expected exciting or boring experience. Enjoyment is the degree of pleasure that participants perceived when imaging to walk on the sidewalks. Collectively, visibility, excitement, enjoyment, prime, and norms together play crucial roles in nudging people to walk. Additionally, females, exercise lovers, and hospitality and leisure industry workers tend to have higher intentions in walking while traveling. </div><div><br></div><div>Theoretically, the thesis adds new knowledge to interventions and deconstructions of tourists' walking intentions. Additionally, the study contributes to the refinement of descriptive norms and the literature of social comparison. Practically, the study implies that wellness resources need to be easily noticed by the public so as to make optimal use of healthy support. It also alarms tourism practitioners that besides improving tourists' health, wellness resources can become a pull factor of the tourist attraction and thereby bring tourism economic benefits.</div>

By revealing deeper meanings and connecting the visitor to the resource, interpretation strives to accomplish a number of goals. Interpretation can increase knowledge of a program\'s topic, change the visitor's attitude toward something, change future behaviors, and increase appreciation for a place and its resources. While literature exists professing best practices for interpretation, little empirical support is present in the research literature to validate these practices' individual links to desired outcomes. This study empirically identifies attributes of the interpreter that statistically linked to visitor outcomes. We tracked 31 interpreter attributes and 10 intended outcomes of interpreters in 376 live interpretive programs in 24 units of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) and conducted visitor surveys immediately following the programs. This research addresses the following question: Which interpreter attributes most consistently lead to desired outcomes? Our research shows that the interpreter attributes most consistently associated with positive visitor outcomes were the interpreter's apparent degree of confidence and expression authentic emotion. The results can be used to inform interpretive training throughout the National Park Service. / Master of Science

This thesis seeks to investigate how architecture can utilize different techniques to introduce people to landscape, specifically those who have an uncomfortable relationship with nature due to inequities in access to quality green space, a cultural distancing from nature due to historical acts of violence, or an increasingly urban and work focused lifestyle. A proposed Visitor Center in Rock Creek Park, in Washington, DC, acts as a slow transition from park to city and back again, breaking the landscape into more digestible pieces before putting it back together as a whole. The building's strategy for introduction can be broken up into two categories, what the building reveals to visitors, and what it tells visitors. The building reveals the surrounding landscape in a rhythmic way of spaces of rest and spaces of activity, utilizing entrances on different levels, screened views, and glass corners to frame the landscape and topography. It is also designed to reveal the power of the environment, the sun, the rain, and the snow, in weathering the materials and creating a dynamic appearance and exposing the ways in which water runs through the site. In addition to showing the park, the building also is responsible for educating visitors about the important cultural and natural history of the park. The architecture supports the education of visitors in a flexible and non-technological way, using a variety of surfaces to display information to be seen and touched, to encourage the slowing down of minds and bodies to facilitate the transition from the bustling city to the restorative nature of the park. The proposed building utilizes design concepts present in nature and integrates them into the architecture of the building, to create an introductory experience into the landscape that touches the senses and the mind, preparing the visitors to enjoy the park. / Master of Architecture / This thesis, Taking Root, seeks to investigate how architecture can utilize different techniques to introduce people to a landscape, specifically those who have an uncomfortable relationship with nature due to inequities in access to quality green space, a cultural distancing from nature due to historical acts of violence, or an increasingly urban and work focused lifestyle. Research shows that time spent in nature improves mental and physical health outcomes, and the disparity of access or quality creates an issue of injustice. A proposed Visitor Center in Rock Creek Park, in Washington, DC, seeks to remedy that by acting as a slow transition from park to city and back again, and down into the canyon and back again. The building’s strategy for facilitating an introduction can be broken up into three categories: how the building relates to the environment, what the building reveals to visitors, and what it tells visitors. First, the building is designed to reveal the power of the environment, the sun, the rain, and the snow, on the façade through the careful selection of materials specifically for their weathering properties. In addition, the use of a native vine allows the building to change colors through the four seasons of the park, and mirror the forest that surrounds it. The combination of these techniques, plus minimizing the environmental impact of the building through stormwater management, a green roof for local pollinators, bird-safe glass, and reducing solar gain exposes the critical relationship between architecture and environment. Secondly, the visitor center reveals the landscape through the adoption of techniques found in nature that facilitate a powerful introduction to a place, and formalizes them into the architecture of the building and experience of the visitors. The techniques to promote familiarity with the park include controlling the pace with a series of long, curving paths and embracing the rhythm of the topography with ramps and the seasons with a pattern of spaces for activity and rest, teasing with glimpses through the tree-like screen and through the glass gills, framing the view into the park. In addition, the building strives to amplify liminal space, a threshold between the old and new, architecture and nature, which exists in the glass corner gills. These corners jutting into the park, lit by a skylight, and fed fresh air by automated ventilation louvers, allows for a person to have a more intimate experience, in a way that really exists outside of the building, but in a way that provides the comfort of familiarity and not being quite all the way in nature either. Finally, the building also is responsible for telling the visitors what they need to know by educating them on the important cultural and natural history of the park. The architecture supports the education of visitors in a flexible and non-technological way, using a variety of surfaces to display information to be seen and touched, to encourage the slowing down of minds and bodies to facilitate the transition from the bustling city to the restorative nature of the park. The proposed building utilizes its interaction with the physical environment, design concepts present in nature to reveal the landscape, and conveys information in a way and pace that is reflective of the way time moves in the park. All three strategies combine to create an introductory experience into the landscape that touches the senses and the mind, preparing the visitors to enjoy and appreciate Rock Creek Park.

This thesis contains two studies that explore different methods of visitor management in recreation. The management strategies studied here are both relatively indirect approaches intended to minimize the environmental and social impacts that visitors cause in protected areas. The Annapolis Rocks study focuses on visitors' evaluations of a site management strategy that shifted camping from a flat, open area to constructed side-hill campsites. A visitor questionnaire was administered before and after the treatment to determine visitors' ratings of importance and satisfaction for various campsite attributes. We found some evidence of visitor displacement but concluded that the site management strategy supported the intentions of the managers. The Leave No Trace study evaluates the effectiveness of the Trainer courses in improving the knowledge, ethics, and behavior of the participants and encouraging them to teach others in the community. This study employed pre-course, post-course, and follow-up questionnaires to evaluate the participants' short-term and long-term gains from the course. Trainer course participants showed significant short-term and long-term gains from the course, with a slight decline in the total gain four months after the course. The participants showed improvements in low-impact behaviors, suggesting that education is an effective visitor management strategy. These studies demonstrate that managers can be successful at controlling visitor impacts without relying on stringent regulations and enforcement. / Master of Science

The purpose of the thesis study is designing a visitor center which will be used by tourist who are visiting the city and as well as the by the people who lives in the city. Therefore the visitor center will be functioned as a city center in the middle of the most important tourist attraction location of Istanbul. Besides functioning as a city center project will analyze the most important architecture element of 21st century, curtain wall. / Master of Architecture

I denna uppsats tar vi upp frågan om besökarens upplevelse och hur detta mäts på olika museer. Vi har avgränsat oss till Stockholms läns museer. Syftet är att se vilka undersökningsmetoder som finns för att mäta besökarens upplevelse och hur dessa metoder används. Vi har även tagit reda på vad som behövs för att besökaren ska bli tillfredsställd med ett besök. För att uppnå tillfredsställelse hos besökaren tar vi upp aspekterna lojalitet, sinnen och förväntningar.   Vid insamlingen av det empiriska materialet för denna uppsats har vi använt oss av e-postintervjuer och tre djupgående intervjuer med personer som har goda kunskaper inom undersökningsmetoder. Med hjälp av våra respondenter och den teoretiska information som insamlats har vi sammanställt ett resultat. Resultatet som framkommit påvisar att enkäter och personlig kontakt är det som främst används för att mäta en besökares upplevelse. Personlig kontakt, interaktion och förväntningar hjälper besökaren att uppnå tillfredsställelse och på så sätt skapas en lojalitet mellan besökaren och museet. / In this essay we have raised the question of visitor experience and how this is measured at various museums. We have delimited our purpose by observing the Stockholm county museums. This is to make sure which inquiry methods the museums are using to measure the visitor experience and how these methods are being used. Also we wanted to find out what is needed for the visitor to be satisfied with the visit. In order to achieve the satisfaction of the visitor we have taken loyalty, senses and expectations into consideration.   To collect the empirical material for this paper we have used e-mail interviews and three profound interviews with people who have good knowledge of inquiry methods. With the help of our respondents and the theoretical information collected, we have compiled the results. The result that has emerged is demonstrating that surveys and personal contact are mainly used to measure a visitor's experience. Personal contact, interaction and expectations will help the visitor achieve satisfaction, and thus created a loyalty between the visitor and the museum.

Knowledge of visitor impacts is critical for sustainable tourism management in national parks. The focus of past tourism impact research on national parks is either on bio-physical impacts (conducted as recreation ecology research) or on social impacts (human dimensions, including environmental perception and crowding). Research integrating these two dimensions has been rarely conducted. This research aims to fill this gap through the integrative approach that attempts to understand current biophysical impacts of visitor activities in a national park, and it examines how visitors perceive these impacts. The primary objectives of this dissertation are 1) to provide a synthesis of existing of bio-physical impacts of visitor activities in the Khao Yai National Park (KYNP) and 2) to examine visitors’ perception of those impacts. Also, the factors affecting visitors’ perception are analyzed. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this study. Previous impact studies conducted in KYNP were reviewed. A visitor survey was conducted between December 2008 and February 2009. The questionnaires were distributed to 628 domestic and 40 international visitors. The 38 KYNP official interviews were completed. Based on previous impact research in KYNP, the most common bio-physical impacts include soil compaction, removal of humus layer, erosion, plant damage, soil and root exposure, water quality deterioration, disturbance and feeding wildlife. Other environmental impacts include noise pollution and garbage accumulation. The results indicate that more than 30 percent of visitors do not recognize the negative results of their activities. With the exception of vegetation and water impacts, overall, visitors perceive the impacts as less severe than the actual impacts. Environmental impacts are rated differently by the KYNP officials, domestic, and international visitors. Also, significant differences were found among birders, hikers, and campers. The key factors influencing impact perceptions include income level, education level, residential location, park visitation experience, length of stay in KYNP, recreation activity, frequency of activity, group type, and group size. It is suggested that both the quality and the quantity of visitor impact research are needed to construct the body of knowledge of impacts in KYNP. A long-term impact monitoring is required to sustain the ecological integrity in KYNP.

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