Visitor satisfaction at Kakum National Park in Ghana

• Yaw Boakye Agyeman ^[1] ; Osei Kwame Aboagye ^[1] ; Enoch Ashie ^[2]
  1. [1] University of Energy and Natural Resources

     University of Energy and Natural Resources

     Ghana

     
  2. [2] Kakum National Park,Wildlife Division of Forestry Commission, Accra, Ghana
• Localización: Tourism recreation research, ISSN 0250-8281, Vol. 44, Nº. 2, 2019, págs. 178-189
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • Protected areas have a strong appeal to visitors seeking experience in natural settings. In satisfyingvisitors, managers need to understand their expectations and the experiences as a basis forproviding a satisfactory experience for them. These experiences can be influenced by someaspects of protected areas such as the presence of charismatic species, and the attractiveness ofthe landscape, which constitutes the attributes that generally affect the satisfaction of visitors.Despite the growing importance of protected area tourism, little attention has been paid tovisitor satisfaction based on their evaluation of the quality of the attributes. This paper aims atinvestigating visitors’perception of the quality of the attributes of a protected area in order toidentify those attributes that contribute to visitor satisfaction. Using Kakum National Park inGhana, a survey was administered to 191 visitors to indicate their perceptions on the importanceand performance of the attributes, using systematic sampling, over a period of four weeks. Thestudy revealed that culture and natural setting were found to be important to the visitors.However, a generally poor performance of a range of attributes undermines visitor satisfaction.Management interventions in improving cultural and natural experiences are critical to visitorsatisfaction