No / Tranquility has a number of facets. Given the role that tranquility plays in societies, it is increasingly seen as an environmental indicator. Earlier, some have identified tranquility as contributing to health and wellbeing of individuals and the society, making it to be rooted in the context of sound natural ecosystems as a desirable environmental characteristic. Previous studies have identified tranquility places as having links to nature and natural features, wild landscapes, naturally behaving wildlife and natural sounds. The question of how tranquility can be evaluated and the perception of tranquility by visitors is a continuous recurrence. This study therefore selected seven green open spaces in Hong Kong in an attempt to answer these and other questions that are arising. Although results vary, it however provides a perspective on how people perceive tranquil spaces as part of their leisure and recreation indulgence, given rise to the concept of eco-leisure. / Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (RGC/GRF, CUHK449612)

The literature suggests that a correlation exists between visitor satisfaction and a visitor's choice to re-experience a product. The higher one's satisfaction level, the more likely he/she is to experience the product again and/or provide positive word-of-mouth advertising to friends and family. The Tian-Cole and Crompton model was chosen because of its acknowledgment and explanation of the differences between Visitor Satisfaction (VS) and Service Quality (SQ) and how their relationship influences satisfaction and contributes to Future Destination Selection. In addition to identifying a theoretical framework that explains why visitors return, it was necessary to identify a survey methodology to be used in developing the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve (MPRFR) visitor satisfaction surveys. It was determined that a combination of the Relative Performance Assessment (RPA) and Customer Service Questionnaire (CSQ) was an appropriate survey framework for a visitor satisfaction survey. As a result of the research, two visitor satisfaction surveys were developed: Intercept Survey and Mail-back Survey. The Intercept Survey will be administered at a MPRFR site. It was designed to be concise and not take much of the visitor's time. This survey will be used to gather general information about visitor characteristics and level of satisfaction while at a site. The Mail-back Survey will be sent to the visitor after their trip so more time can be devoted to answering a more detailed visitor satisfaction survey. This survey asks visitors to indicate what site characteristics are important to them and then rate their satisfaction with each item. Instruments from the report entitled "A Front Country Visitor Study for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument" were used as an example of how to format a visitor satisfaction survey and how to use the collected data as a managerial tool. The two main objectives of this research were accomplished and have established a foundation upon which subsequent research efforts will begin. This work serves as a catalyst to improving Belizean site planning, design, and management by better understanding what site characteristics contribute to visitor satisfaction.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references.

There is evidence that the presence of the visiting public affects the behaviour of zoo-housed mammals. Understanding the effect of visitors is important in improving animal welfare, achieving zoo conservation goals, increasing visitor education/entertainment, and facilitating interpretation of data on zoo animal biology. A series of studies and experiments focusing on the effect of zoo visitors on captive mammal behaviour is presented. The influence of visitor density on a range of primates and large carnivores is examined. Methodological concerns regarding the operational definition of visitor density in the literature are expressed and a clarification of terms which may be helpful when comparing previous research is provided. Visitor noise data, using an objective measure of the variable, and its relationship to visitor density are also presented. External and internal visual barriers between visitors and zoo animals were hypothesised to moderate the visitor effect and enrich the environment of the study groups. Camouflage nets mounted on the outside of enclosure viewing windows had little impact on primate or felid behaviour, with the exception of the Sumatran orangutan group, who showed a trend toward decreased social play in the presence of the external barrier. Polar bear behaviour showed evidence of an enriched environment, with trends toward increased levels of swimming and decreased levels of resting. An internal visual barrier, which prevented visitors from having visual contact with the golden lion tamarins when the nonhuman primates were behind it, was also tested and elicited more extensive trends toward behavioural change than did the nets. Both Sumatran orangutans and zoo visitors were provided with a similar puzzle feeder in an effort to enrich the orangutan enclosure, and improve the visitor experience. It was hypothesised that the orangutans might be stimulated by watching visitors manipulate the device, but this did not occur. Orangutan use of the puzzle feeder within their enclosure was also unaffected. Olfactory stimuli were introduced into primate and felid enclosures and visitor viewing areas to investigate the role olfaction may play in the visitor effect. Although olfactory stimuli had an extensive significant effect on the behaviour of the study groups when it was introduced into the enclosure, there was little change when visitors were associated with the olfactory stimuli which suggest there may not be an olfactory visitor effect in primates or felids. The effect of visitors on petting zoo-housed mixed-breed goats, llama, and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs was studied and compared to their behaviour without the presence of visitors. The goats were unaffected and the llama showed only a trend toward decreased levels of sitting in the presence of visitors. The Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs were significantly affected by the presence of visitors, exhibiting decreased inactivity and social behaviour. The hypothesis that a sustained absence of visitors would result in a more intense visitor effect was tested and was not supported by the data. An additional experiment investigating the effect of visitor grooming on the petting zoo study species showed that, while visitors spent more time interacting with the animals in the grooming condition, xiv the behaviour of the study animals indicated that they did not find visitor grooming rewarding. Data on the interaction between visitor density and the various experimental techniques tested here indicate that visitor density may impact animal response to environmental enrichment, supporting previous findings in the literature. In the presence of visual barriers, foraging devices, and olfactory stimuli, the relationship between animal behaviour and visitor density changed significantly, both qualitatively and quantitatively. These results suggest that collecting visitor density data when testing environmental enrichment techniques could be helpful when assessing their effectiveness, ultimately improving the welfare of zoo-housed mammals. Based on the data presented here, in conjunction with the literature, a closing discussion outlines proposed refinements to the visitor effect research guidelines published by the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (2005).

Prior studies on museum visitors are extensively centred on national museums, the studies on regional museums are scarce. To fill in the academic gap, a research is proposed concerning the visitors of Dalarna Museum, a regional museum in Sweden. With an aim to profile visitors’ demographic characteristics and investigate the motivational factors that influence visitors’ frequency of visits, a face-to-face questionnaire survey was implemented at Dalarna Museum. To get visitors’ demographic characteristics, a few closed and open questions are devised to profile visitors’ gender, age, occupation, income, education, number of children and residence place. To investigate the motivational factors that influence visitors’ frequency of visits, a seven-point Likert questionnaire is employed with 17 motivational factors included. During a 12-day data collection, 372 visitors were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey, whereof 357 had filled in the questionnaire, generating a response rate that is as high as 96 percent. After data cleansing, there are 355 completed and valid responses in total. According to the results, some of visitors’ demographic characteristics are similar including gender, age, occupation, income, and number of children. However, the characteristics regarding visitors’ residence places and educational attainments are different comparing the frequent visitors to occasional visitors. Through running a multiple regression analysis, 13 out of the 17 motivational factors are detected having significant influences on visitors’ frequency of visits to Dalarna Museum, of which the most influential one is visitors’ day-outs with their friends and relatives.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Visitor behavior research has become an essential component to many museum programs. Since its opening to the public in 1965, Oregon State University's Mark O. Hatfield Marine Science Center Aquarium in Newport, it has been visited by millions of people. A clear understanding of who this audience was and what they actually did while viewing the exhibits in the aquarium had never been achieved. This descriptive study describes fall season visitors and their circulation patterns. The goal of the study was to understand the interrelationships between visitors, exhibits and the physical layout of the aquarium. One purpose of the study was to provide information that would aid staff members with long range planning decisions that include the design of new exhibits and the renovation of older displays. Besides identifying the aquarium's fall audience, demographic data on visitors was desired to gain a clearer understanding of populations that did not visit the museum. Two-hundred and forty participants responded to a survey questionnaire administered by HMSC volunteers and the author. Forty unobtrusive observations of visitors were collected by the author. Respondents included all age groups; however, the young adults (late teens, early twenties) were underrepresented. Over half of the respondents had visited HMSC before; 81% of repeat visitors were from Oregon. A positive correlation was shown to exist between group size and the length of visit. The larger the group the longer the group tended to visit in the aquarium. The average time spent in the aquarium was 30.6 minutes. Most (82.5%) respondents overestimated the length of their visit by an average of 22 minutes. Overall, visitors were found to spend over 77% of their time at HMSC viewing the exhibits. Only 7.3% of the visitors observed traveled through the aquarium the way it was designed. The average amount of time spent at exhibits ranged from 16.6 seconds to 212.5 seconds; however, standard deviation and range indicate a great deal of variability in visitor behavior. Visitor traffic patterns and competition between exhibits was shown to influence the visitor experience. Survey and observation results were consistent with examples at other museums, zoos and aquariums cited in the literature. / Graduation date: 1992

A vast literature acknowledges that minority groups, particularly African-Americans, receive less, and lower-quality treatment than Caucasians in U.S. health facilities. It remains an open question as to how much of this disparity is a result of poverty, and how much, a result of more overt discrimination. Former empirical studies are far from conclusive given the endogeneity of hospital quality, as minorities are overrepresented in areas served by poor health facilities. To remedy this endogeneity issue, we observe visitors to the state of Florida, as well as travelers within Florida. When an individual experiences a health shock far from home, her hospital assignment becomes random. By contrasting treatment intensity, and patient outcomes of minority visitors with the total population, we find that residence plays a substantial role in the provision of healthcare. Our results indicate that though African-Americans as minority group receive less treatment and experience higher mortality rates, these disparities disappear for African-American visitors.

Det här är ett examensarbete i informationsdesign med inriktning mot rumslig gestaltning. Syftet med detta examensarbete har varit att undersöka utvecklingsmöjligheterna för den rumsliga utformningen i X huvudentré, med målet om att rumsligt stärka informationslänken mellan företaget och besökare. Genom att skapa en förståelse för hur rummets gestaltning samspelar med människans upplevelse ges en större insikt i hur ett rum bör utformas för ett bestämt syfte, både för att kunna stödja en praktisk funktion och även en visuell upplevelse. Syftet med de undersökningar som utförts i examensarbetet har varit att få en uppfattning kring besökarnas upplevelse av den rumsliga utformningen i X huvudentré. Huruvida rummet som informationslänk fungerar mellan företag och besökare. Genom att använda mig av olika metoder såsom litteraturstudie, semistrukturerad intervju, observationer, notationer och enkäter kunde en bristande informativ länk konstateras. Med stöd av litteratur och olika forsknings- teorier har jag designat en modul där olika rumsliga element har inkluderats, för att på ett tydligare och mer integrerande sätt presentera företaget. Med modulens centrala placering skapas ett mer lättillgängligt informationsflöde i rummet. Modulens form och innehåll väcker besökarens intresse ”på vägen”. Det blir en central plats för information, där företaget genom sin moderna teknik kan förmedla nya projekt, sin visionsbild och på så sätt stärka sin image.

The purpose of this study was to see how visitors to the Landmarks Video media station in the Art Building at The University of Texas at Austin described how they make meaning while watching video art and what learning models those visitors drew on in their responses. I conducted a qualitative case study using semi-structured interviews to see how visitors described their meaning making process. I used discourse analysis to compare the visitor’s responses to art and film theories to see where the responses and the existing theories overlapped. I applied the results of the discourse analysis to determine how visual literacy and media literacy could be used in museum education surrounding video art. Visitors drew on a variety of background experiences in their responses to the videos Sigalit Landau’s DeadSee (2005) and Dara Birnbaum’s Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-1979) including past experiences with art and film as well as experiences with feminism, pop culture, and politics. Their responses also related to a variety of areas within art and film theory. While background knowledge helped the participants begin to make meaning with the videos, it also blocked them when the video touched on something beyond their comfort level. I researched current uses of visual literacy, including uses in the museum, and current trends in media literacy. Due to the fact that the visitors’ reactions related to art and film theory, but they were finding themselves blocked in their meaning making, I conclude that a museum education program that uses current museum education practices in visual literacy, but incorporates techniques from media literacy, would be successful in helping visitors articulate their interpretations of a piece of video art and move past what is limiting them. / text