The Assessment of the Tourism Potential of the Tagus International Nature Reserve Landscapes Using Methods Based on the Opinion of the Demand

There are different methodologies to assess landscape preferences, however there is no consensual methodology that can be replicated to identify their tourism potential. Recent studies have focused on agricultural landscape preferences due to their cultural characteristics. Although agricultural activity conflicts with the management models of natural protected areas, traditional models and sustainable practices reveal opportunities to boost tourism in this area, both for their aesthetic value, and for the opportunity to preserve biodiversity and maintain lively landscapes. The present study focuses on a double approach to collect data to measure the preferences for landscape typologies to realize outdoor/recreative activities in Tagus International Nature Reserve (TINR), among them, agricultural landscapes, such as the agro-silvopastural system Dehesa/Montado or olive grove. The preference of the landscapes were evaluated through photographs with pairwise comparison and without photographs observation, in which 174 respondents were consulted with. The different methodologies applied allowed for the extraction of different results, which led to the assumption that in fact there is no single methodology to assess preferences. However, the application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology with photographical pairwise comparison allowed for the extraction of more robust results when considering attractions with tourism typologies, revealing that Cultural tourism/Rural mixed and Agritourism were the most valued. This information is pertinent to support TINR managers and local tourism promoters to plan and structure products and services based on button-up methodologies.

Automated summary

There is no consensual methodology to assess landscape preferences and identify tourism potential. This study focuses on using photographs with pairwise comparison and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology to measure preferences for landscape typologies in Tagus International Nature Reserve. The findings suggest that cultural tourism/rural mixed and agritourism are highly valued.