A STUDY ON THE EVALUATION OF THE ACCESSIBILITY OF A TOURIST DESTINATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF TOURISTS' PERCEPTION——A Case Study of Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve
WANG Lan1, ZHANG Jie1, CAO Jing1, WU Tie-hong1, CAI Yong-shou2, YANG Qing-xia2
1. School of Geographic and Oceanographic Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
2. The Management Office of Jiuzhaigou Landscape Showplace, Zhangzha Town, Jiuzhaigou 623402, China
Abstract Accessibility of a tourist attraction plays an important role in the development of tourism industry. Using a case study of Juzhaigou Nature Reserve, this study establishes a quantitative evaluation model of accessibility of tourist destinations. It is generally assumed that accessibility is the convenience of a place to connect to other places. The accessibility of a tourist destination includes two parts. One is the geographical accessibility, which is related to the location and transportation. The other is the tourists' (consumers') accessibility, which is determined by hardware facilities, cultural environment, as well as visitors' behavior. This investigation is based on a survey of 600 visitors in Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, which is conducted during April 28th-May 4th (2008). Likert Scaling and SPSS16.0 are adopted in the analysis process. The result indicates that (1) internal transportation system, information accessibility, facilities and services, cultural environment, comfort and health are the main concern of tourists as accessibility in Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve; (2) from the visitors' perceptional perspectives, the most important factors which influence the accessibility of a tourist destination are internal transportation conditions, medical service, and personal security; (3) tourists are satisfied with the accessibility of Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve on the whole; (4) tourists' appraisal after tour is better than the one before tour; (5) Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve still has lots of opportunities to upgrade its accessibility. Therefore, effective tourism marketing program should be conducted to enhance the competitive power.
2010, Vol. 25 
