CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Landscape forms define different kinds of activities and influence tourists? andvisitors? expectations. Knowledge of users? typology is a fundamental aspect to beconsidered in sustainable tourism. In this study we analyze the public perceptionassociated with preferences for landscape and tourist destination. Surveys wereapplied to users visiting five urban nature reserves in the metropolitan area ofBuenos Aires. Experiential and experimental preferences for landscape featureswere classified in ten categories; vacation was discriminated in beach, mountain,city and rural destinations and both were contrasted with the profiles and educationlevels of respondents on the background of Argentina as a country with highlandscape diversity. There were significant differences between education levelsand landscape preferences for four features: variety, one element of the landscape,sensorial features and color; while age was significant for six landscape features:maintenance, one element of the landscape, variety, wilderness, admiration andsensorial features. Beach landscapes, followed by mountain landscapes, were thepreferred destinations selected by all groups of respondents, except for the groupof people with elementary school education who chose rural destinations as theirsecond preference.