Economic and social impacts of recreation and nature tourism

The goal of this research was to investigate the social carrying capacity of an urban park in Vienna, Austria. We used a stated choice approach, combined with a referendum style conjoint model. Based on the hypothesis that the perception of crowding is influenced by several factors, digitally calibrated images were generated to depict in a systematic and rigorous manner different visitor numbers, user types, group sizes, the placement of visitors within the scene, numbers of dogs on or off leash, and the direction of visitor movement. The social carrying capacity was measured by asking each respondent whether the presented scenario was acceptable or not. Overall, visitor numbers, the placement of visitors within the image, and dogs being on or off a leash influenced the visitors’ decisions the most. The results of the binomial logit model can be used to simulate and calculate the visitor norms for many different situations; in other words, the referendum style conjoint approach delivers recreation norms within a truly multivariate investigative framework.