Visitor perceptions on place attachment to the Iranian National Botanical Garden as a recreational site

The National Botanical Garden (NBG) of Iran, which represents different regions of natural resources in Iran has the potential to be used as a recreational site. As a national resource, NBG has drawn different viewpoints from different visitors. This study addresses visitors' perceptions towards recreational experience preferences and attachment to NBG. The Place Attachment Theory was used to explain the feelings, perceptions, ideas, meanings, and demands of the visitors about recreational activities in this garden. Meanwhile, the Q-methodology was employed to analyse the subjectivity of the visitors' opinions. The Q-sample list of 52 statements requires 25 respondents to have the required diversity of viewpoints in this study. Three different Factor Groups emerged from the Q-sort data and these were named as follows: (1) Educational Group, (2) Emotional Group, and (3) Functional Group. The Educational Group focused more on ''outdoor learning" but did not express functional attachment to NBG and their emotional attachment was found to be low. The Emotional Group revealed that their recreation experience preferences were mostly through "spirituality" and "enjoyment of nature" that had led them to their emotional attachment to NBG. However, this particular group of visitors had no interest to do "physical activities" or be engaged in "social and family relationship" and they did not express any functional attachment to NBG as well. Finally, the Functional Group preferred "spirituality", "outdoor learning" and "enjoyment of nature" in their recreation experiences. Those in this group felt more place dependence on NBG as a recreational site, although they did not feel emotional attachment to it at all. Therefore, place attachment in these factor groups was not strong enough to prevent them from substituting NBG with other places to do their recreational activities. The respondents noted that they needed to spend more time at NBG and just visiting the place could not create place identity for them. Recreational activities give them an opportunity to spend more time in NBG to feel attached to the place and make well-developed link with this place. Hence, the most important implication from this study is for managers to have a better understanding of the feelings of visitors, as well as their needs, and their relationships with NBG to make their participations in recreational activities meaningful and in the end, to protect this recreational site.

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