<p>Karlstad kommun vill att Karlstad ska uppnå 100 000 invånare, mot idag dryga 80 000. För att nå dit måste tätortsnära skogar exploateras. För att få reda på hur välbesökta de tätortsnära skogarna är i Karlstad, genomfördes i november 2005, februari, maj och augusti-september 2006 en kvantitativ besöksstudie av I2-skogen i nordvästra Karlstad. I2-skogen är ett tätortsnära område omgärdat av bostäder åt tre håll. I området finns bland annat flera motionsspår, golfbana och skjutbanor. Studien visar att området är välbesökt, ca 180 000 besökare per år. 77 % av besökarna bor i närområdet runt skogen, inom ett avstånd av 500 meter. Boendeformerna i området speglar besökarna och deras aktiviteter och I2-skogen kan kallas för en ”vardagsskog” med besökare som återkommer flera dagar i veckan. Om de tätortsnära skogarna runt Karlstad exploateras enligt kommunens översiktsplan kommer det att påverka invånare som idag bor nära skogsområden till att de får längre avstånd mellan bostaden och skogen. Ett längre avstånd kan göra att det tar för lång tid att ta sig till skogsområden, vilket leder till att antal besök minskar. När människor inte har tid att vistas i skogen ökar stress och ohälsa, även barn påverkas negativt av att inte få leka fritt i en tätortsnära skog. Det är nu läge att inrätta någon form av områdesskydd för vissa av de tätortsnära skogarna runt Karlstad, då de har ett oerhört viktigt socialt värde för befolkningen i Karlstad och därför behöver bevaras för framtiden.</p> / <p>The local authority in the city of Karlstad, Sweden, want the city to increase to 100 000 inhabitants, today it has about 80 000 inhabitants. To reach the goal several urban forests needs to be exploited. To get an understanding of how well visited the urban forest is in Karlstad, a visitor study were made in November 1995, February, May and August-September in 2006 in the I2-forest. The I2-forest is an urban forest surrounded by residences in three directions. In the area there are several trails, a golf court and shooting ranges. The quantitative visitor study shows that the I2-forest is well visited by about 180 000 visitors per year. 77 % of the visitors are living in residence maximum 500 meter from the forest. The different kind of residences in the neighbourhood shows who the visitors are and what activities they are doing. Many of the visitors come several days a week to the forest. If the forests around Karlstad city will get exploited as the local authority want, it will affect a lot of people to get longer distance to a forest from their homes. A longer distance could make it take too long time to get to the forest area and the number of visitors will decrease. When people don’t have time to be in the forest the stress and ill-health will increase, even the children will be affected negatively. Therefore it would be a good idea to establish some kind of reserve in some of Karlstad’s urban forests, to protect them from future exploitations. Because the urban forest have a great social value for the inhabitants in Karlstad and therefore the urban forest need to be saved in the future.</p>

Karlstad kommun vill att Karlstad ska uppnå 100 000 invånare, mot idag dryga 80 000. För att nå dit måste tätortsnära skogar exploateras. För att få reda på hur välbesökta de tätortsnära skogarna är i Karlstad, genomfördes i november 2005, februari, maj och augusti-september 2006 en kvantitativ besöksstudie av I2-skogen i nordvästra Karlstad. I2-skogen är ett tätortsnära område omgärdat av bostäder åt tre håll. I området finns bland annat flera motionsspår, golfbana och skjutbanor. Studien visar att området är välbesökt, ca 180 000 besökare per år. 77 % av besökarna bor i närområdet runt skogen, inom ett avstånd av 500 meter. Boendeformerna i området speglar besökarna och deras aktiviteter och I2-skogen kan kallas för en ”vardagsskog” med besökare som återkommer flera dagar i veckan. Om de tätortsnära skogarna runt Karlstad exploateras enligt kommunens översiktsplan kommer det att påverka invånare som idag bor nära skogsområden till att de får längre avstånd mellan bostaden och skogen. Ett längre avstånd kan göra att det tar för lång tid att ta sig till skogsområden, vilket leder till att antal besök minskar. När människor inte har tid att vistas i skogen ökar stress och ohälsa, även barn påverkas negativt av att inte få leka fritt i en tätortsnära skog. Det är nu läge att inrätta någon form av områdesskydd för vissa av de tätortsnära skogarna runt Karlstad, då de har ett oerhört viktigt socialt värde för befolkningen i Karlstad och därför behöver bevaras för framtiden. / The local authority in the city of Karlstad, Sweden, want the city to increase to 100 000 inhabitants, today it has about 80 000 inhabitants. To reach the goal several urban forests needs to be exploited. To get an understanding of how well visited the urban forest is in Karlstad, a visitor study were made in November 1995, February, May and August-September in 2006 in the I2-forest. The I2-forest is an urban forest surrounded by residences in three directions. In the area there are several trails, a golf court and shooting ranges. The quantitative visitor study shows that the I2-forest is well visited by about 180 000 visitors per year. 77 % of the visitors are living in residence maximum 500 meter from the forest. The different kind of residences in the neighbourhood shows who the visitors are and what activities they are doing. Many of the visitors come several days a week to the forest. If the forests around Karlstad city will get exploited as the local authority want, it will affect a lot of people to get longer distance to a forest from their homes. A longer distance could make it take too long time to get to the forest area and the number of visitors will decrease. When people don’t have time to be in the forest the stress and ill-health will increase, even the children will be affected negatively. Therefore it would be a good idea to establish some kind of reserve in some of Karlstad’s urban forests, to protect them from future exploitations. Because the urban forest have a great social value for the inhabitants in Karlstad and therefore the urban forest need to be saved in the future.

Visitor activities in parks often have a heavy impact on the soil, vegetation, water and wildlife. In front country areas, the most extreme damage is concentrated on and adjacent to recreational trails. Aside from controlling the numbers, activities and behaviours of trail users, managers may choose to make trails more resistant to impact through surfacing. Unfortunately, surfacing may have negative influences on park visitors' enjoyment of trails by limiting access or detracting from the primitive setting. In addition, some surfaces may be ineffective in certain environmental conditions such as wet ground or steep slopes. Finally, the wide variety in construction and maintenance costs may make some surface types economically unfeasible. The goals of this research are to investigate the role of trail surfacing in the management of impacts from outdoor recreation; to develop better understanding of the social, economic and environmental aspects of trail surfacing decisions; and to explore a comprehensive framework for incorporating these three factors in trail management. It is hoped that this research can assist park managers in selecting surfacing options to reduce visitor impact without excessively compromising recreational experience or organizational limitations, such as financial resources. In addition to a comprehensive review of literature on visitor impact management on trails and surfacing techniques, this research employs three methods to further investigate the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing: a trail user survey, manager survey and trail condition assessment. The trail user survey was conducted at two well-used natural areas in southwestern Ontario, Canada: Presqu'ile Provincial Park and Belfountain Conservation Area. Surveys at each area explored trail users' perceptions and preferences of trail surfacing techniques in late summer 1999. The managers' survey provided insight into organizational approaches to surfacing, including construction cost and observations on recreational or environmental effectiveness. Finally, the trail condition assessment explored an approach to determining environmental effectiveness of trail surfacing techniques, but was limited by the physical and recreational variation between trails. Seven recommendations for trail managers are presented, tying in several conceptual frameworks of visitor impact management and trail surfacing decisions developed in the thesis. First, trail managers are recommended to develop a full understanding of trail design principles and alternative visitor impact management techniques. If surfacing is selected as the best impact management technique, trail managers should obtain as much information on user characteristics, environmental conditions and organizational limitations as possible. Despite the benefits and drawbacks for all surfaces, road base gravel (or angular screenings with fines) merits special attention as an excellent surface, while asphalt and concrete are not recommended for front country, semi-primitive recreation. Finally, trail managers are encouraged to share information on surfacing more freely and open surfacing decision processes to affected trail users. Overall, trail managers are provided with an approach to surfacing decisions that considers the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing, with the goal of working toward more enjoyable, environmentally responsible and cost-effective trail solutions.

Studiens syfte är att studera utbytesstudenters rumsliga relation till fem utvalda besöksattraktioner med tyngdvikt på vad för sorts tankar, känslor, värderingar och mening som dessa genererar. Vi har genomfört sex stycken kvalitativa enskilda intervjuer samt en fokusgruppintervju med utbytesstudenter, där fotografier på fem uppvisade besöksattraktioner i Stockholm har presenteras. Dessa besöksattraktioner var Stadshuset, Ericsson Globe/Skyview, Kungliga Slottet, Vasamuseet samt Gröna Lund. Våra underliggande frågeställningar har behandlat besöksattraktionernas fysiska utformning, vad dessa representerar samt vad utbytesstudenterna finner om dess geografiska placering i förhållande till hur staden är utformad. Den teoretiska genomgången behandlar platsens och rummets dimensioner samt semiotik. Ett av uppsatsens viktigaste bidrag handlar om hur makten kan uttryckas i rummet genom besöksattraktioner samt hur viktigt det är att skapa en platskänsla vid utformningen av besöksattraktioner. / The purpose of this thesis is to study foreign exchange student’s spatial relation to five chosen visitor attractions situated in Stockholm. Our main focus lies within what kind of thoughts, feelings, values and significance that these attractions generates. We have conducted six in depth interviews along with one focus group where we have presented images of the selected attractions which are The City Hall, The Ericsson Globe/Skyview, The Royal Palace, The Vasa museum and Gröna Lund, which is Stockholm’s Tivoli. Our research has revolved around questions such as the physical layout of the attractions, what they represent and the importance of where the attractions are located in relation to the city. The theoretical review mainly deals with the dimensions of place, space and semiotics. One of the thesis main contributions describes how power can be expressed in space through visitor attractions, and the importance of being able to create a sense of place in the design of visitor attractions.

Visitor activities in parks often have a heavy impact on the soil, vegetation, water and wildlife. In front country areas, the most extreme damage is concentrated on and adjacent to recreational trails. Aside from controlling the numbers, activities and behaviours of trail users, managers may choose to make trails more resistant to impact through surfacing. Unfortunately, surfacing may have negative influences on park visitors' enjoyment of trails by limiting access or detracting from the primitive setting. In addition, some surfaces may be ineffective in certain environmental conditions such as wet ground or steep slopes. Finally, the wide variety in construction and maintenance costs may make some surface types economically unfeasible. The goals of this research are to investigate the role of trail surfacing in the management of impacts from outdoor recreation; to develop better understanding of the social, economic and environmental aspects of trail surfacing decisions; and to explore a comprehensive framework for incorporating these three factors in trail management. It is hoped that this research can assist park managers in selecting surfacing options to reduce visitor impact without excessively compromising recreational experience or organizational limitations, such as financial resources. In addition to a comprehensive review of literature on visitor impact management on trails and surfacing techniques, this research employs three methods to further investigate the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing: a trail user survey, manager survey and trail condition assessment. The trail user survey was conducted at two well-used natural areas in southwestern Ontario, Canada: Presqu'ile Provincial Park and Belfountain Conservation Area. Surveys at each area explored trail users' perceptions and preferences of trail surfacing techniques in late summer 1999. The managers' survey provided insight into organizational approaches to surfacing, including construction cost and observations on recreational or environmental effectiveness. Finally, the trail condition assessment explored an approach to determining environmental effectiveness of trail surfacing techniques, but was limited by the physical and recreational variation between trails. Seven recommendations for trail managers are presented, tying in several conceptual frameworks of visitor impact management and trail surfacing decisions developed in the thesis. First, trail managers are recommended to develop a full understanding of trail design principles and alternative visitor impact management techniques. If surfacing is selected as the best impact management technique, trail managers should obtain as much information on user characteristics, environmental conditions and organizational limitations as possible. Despite the benefits and drawbacks for all surfaces, road base gravel (or angular screenings with fines) merits special attention as an excellent surface, while asphalt and concrete are not recommended for front country, semi-primitive recreation. Finally, trail managers are encouraged to share information on surfacing more freely and open surfacing decision processes to affected trail users. Overall, trail managers are provided with an approach to surfacing decisions that considers the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing, with the goal of working toward more enjoyable, environmentally responsible and cost-effective trail solutions.

This study addresses the measurement of satisfaction. In doing so, it proposes a hypothetical conceptual framework for examining visitors’ satisfaction with their experiences in nature-based settings. Visitors’ overall satisfaction with their experiences was examined in terms of its relationships to visitors’ satisfaction with various site attributes, to visitors’ perceived importance of interpretive programs to learning, and how it is affected by visitors’ age, gender (male or female) and visitation pattern. The responses of 1309 Visitor Information Program (VIP) surveys returned by visitors to two national sites in Nova Scotia (Port Royal National Historic Site and Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site) provided the data for this study’s investigation. Secondary data analyses revealed that visitors’ satisfaction with the site attributes has the strongest effect on their overall satisfaction with their experiences. While visitors’ perceived importance to learning was also found to be positively correlated to overall experience satisfaction, when other variable are taken into consideration, its effect on overall satisfaction was found not to be statistically significant. Amongst these variables, gender was found to explain a significant amount of variance in visitors’ overall satisfaction with experiences in nature-based settings. Moreover, visitors of different age groups differ significantly in their perceptions of importance of interpretation to learning, and in their satisfaction levels. Although the findings show high levels of satisfaction at both sites, these are taken with caution. A discussion of the issues related to the measurement of satisfaction is provided, along with recommendations for a more discriminant, valid and reliable satisfaction measurement instrument.

The current paper presents a study conducted at CERN, Switzerland, to investigate visitors' and tour guides' use and appreciation of existing panels at visit itinerary points. The results were used to develop a set of recommendations for constructing optimal panels to assist the guides' explanation.

The aim of this study was to asses the impact of a visit to the NIHERST/NGC National Science Centre in Trinidad on four different school-age visitor groups. The research was conducted through the administering of a post-visit questionnaire immediately upon completion of each visit by each group, and via visitor feedback obtained in post-visit or pre-visit activities conducted within two weeks of the visit for three groups. Teachers/instructors who accompanied the groups on their visit also completed post-visit questionnaires and provided additional information on follow-up activities via an interview. The results of this investigation suggest that the visit to this science centre provided entertainment/enjoyment value and potential educational value to most individuals. The nature of this enjoyment was noted for various age groups and genders in this study. Quantification of the educational impact was not possible within the constraints of this study, which was unable to capture long-term effects of the supply of ‘new knowledge’ to visitors which the visit to the science centre had provided.

The purpose of this evaluation is to develop a framework that will help in planning and implementing the mobile sport exhibition, increase visitor satisfaction and aid At Bristol in building successful exhibits. The evaluation mainly focuses on visitor interaction with exhibits. It is believed that learning does occur in science centres and museums. The evaluation will therefore find out if learning occurs in the Sports exhibition and if so, the nature of the learning outcomes. The evaluation also discusses advantages and disadvantages of travelling exhibitions and identifies the characteristics of good exhibits that form the basis of the framework.From the results, an indication is that children make the larger proportion of visitors to Sportastic. Their age ranges, under 10 and 10 to 15 years constituted 21% and 30% respectively. The three most enjoyed exhibits are the Sprint Challenge (running), BATAK (test your reaction and Hot Shots (football). Visitors say these exhibits are enjoyed because they are fun, competitive, entertaining, interactive and hands-on. Skateboard Challenge and Skeleton Bob are among the exhibits least enjoyed since they are reported to be boring and uncomfortable to use. The learning outcomes from the exhibits are; increased knowledge about balancing, reaction, pulse and strength.

The current paper presents a study conducted at The National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm to investigate the exhibition “Antarctica – that’s cool” from its first concept to the first workshop that is held in the exhibition. The focus is on the influence of floor staff on an exhibition and workshops as learning facilities in museums. Findings, based on visitor observation and the exhibition building process, go into the characteristics of low-budget productions and discuss the importance of staff on the exhibition floor for museums as life-long learning facilities. The holistic approach of the study provides deep insights into the complex interplay of visitors, staff and exhibitions. The results can be used for future exhibition building processes and educational programs in museums and should strengthen the museum’s position as life-long learning facility in nowadays society.