Meaningful experiences: understanding the values gained from wildlife-visitor interaction: a case study into environmental interpretation at the Marine education centre in Wellington

Abstract

The personal and emotive context of visitors to wildlife attractions has been neglected in much wildlife tourism management. The individual consumer is, nevertheless, an important evaluator of the potentially meaningful experiences provided at wildlife encounter attractions. It could be argued that by ignoring the expectations, motivations, environmental and social values brought mentally by visitors to the attraction, and the moods, feelings and imaginings gained from satisfying experiences, the full extent of the tangible and intangible beneficial outcomes cannot be fathomed. This thesis applies the ASEB demi-grid analysis as a consumer-orientated management tool designed to facilitate an understanding of the values gained in the short and long-term by visitors to the Marine Education Centre (MEC) in Wellington. The two grids are informed by qualitative in-depth interviews with visitors on-site and after four months off-site, thus using a benefits-based approach to focus on how these experiences were valued as beneficial by visitors. Additional in-depth interviews with the managers of the MEC arc being conducted to inquire into their management objectives, which will allow for comparison with the findings, thus highlighting any conflict of purpose. In this way, insight can be gained (as expressed in the respondents' own words) into the fundamental experiential and educational product being provided by this attraction, therefore exploring the scope of education-based management strategies in inducing environmentally responsible awareness, attitudes and behaviour in visitors. The thesis concludes with a practical model based on the findings that is offered as a paradigm for the study of the essentially subjective, emotive and educational context associated with wildlife encounters. By incorporating the affective and cognitive processes, the practical model describes the core values attained through wildlife encounters by encompassing holistically the experiential components with the learning and cognitive components. The benefits gained by the visitors on and off-site were mainly psychological and included positive moods, environmental sensitivity, meaningful connection with place and species, reinforcement of beliefs and affective learning, as well as attitude and behaviour improvements. The present study, therefore, provided evidence to support the conclusions of previous studies into tourism experiences, that the behaviour of wildlife encounter visitors is far more sensory complex and emotion laden than has been reflected in traditional nature-based tourism research.