Environmental Attitudes and Tourist Satisfaction in Overloaded Natural Protected Areas

Positive attitudes toward the natural environment are supposedly associated with higher levels of satisfaction in the visitation of natural protected areas. However, this relationship has not yet been thoroughly investigated. A reasonable alternative hypothesis can be considered in the case of overloaded natural protected areas (i.e., with high levels of visitation and infrastructure). Too many people and abundant facilities in natural areas could eliminate the effect of the pro-environmental attitude on satisfaction. Environmentalist visitors might feel the area has been spoilt by crowds and overconstruction, or simply they might not find the close contact with nature they were looking for. These concurrent hypotheses were tested using data from 434 interviews conducted with long-haul tourists visiting the Iguacu National Park in Brazil. The results showed that, despite the crowds and large-scale infrastructure in the park, environmentalists are still more satisfied than nonenvironmentalists with the visitation experience. Managerial implications are discussed.