Impact of visit on visitors' perceptions of the environments of nature-based tourism sites

Th e goal of this paper is the assessment of the impact of personal experience on visitors' perceptions of the environments of selected tourist attractions. Th e cognitive paradigm of environmental perception research was chosen and the Mehrabian-Russell general measure of information rate was used. Students from the University of South Bohemia from three diff erent study programmes (faculties) were used to represent three segments: eco-tourists, neutral and mass-tourists. Th e research was undertaken on three tourist sites with diff erent types of occurrences of water in their landscapes – pond, river fl ood plain and peat bog. All three localities are situated within the UNESCO biosphere reserve and landscape protected area of "Třeboňsko" (Třeboň area), Czech Republic. Particular sites were selected with regard to the accessibility of these sites for visitors and to their importance for the concentration of visitors. Th e measurements took place three times – before visit, on-site and after visit. Explanatory factor analysis revealed three factors of perception – spaciousness, novelty and complexity. Th ese factors diff er among localities and each site had a diff erent impact on the site perception of visitors. In the case of spaciousness, it was found that the visit had no impact on visitor perception. Visitation infl uenced the perception of novelty in the same way at two of the sites– both localities, after visitation, were perceived as being more novel. Visitation also infl uenced perception of complexity; this time, however, in diff erent ways that were dependant on the uniqueness of each site.