What do visitors experience in historical gardens?
Visitors in Sanssouci-Potsdam, Germany. Photo: Diana Müller
Historical gardens are considered a niche market in leisure and tourism science. Especially since the 2000s, marketing and management of this type of visitor attraction came more into focus. While there are several quantitative analyses on hand about sociodemography, motivation, satisfaction etc. of garden visitors, there is still a lack of research with respect to the visitors’ experience. This is regardless of the fact that visitor experience has ever since the 18th century been part of the garden architectural discourse.
A German paper presents first findings from a study of the current visitor experience conducted at the historical garden Sanssouci-Potsdam in Germany. Resulting from a qualitative survey of garden visitors, this study leads to a model of visitor experience at Sanssouci. It implicates seven facets of the visitors’ experience and their respective relation. The multifaceted model offers a step towards a better understanding of characterising the visitors’ experience in historical gardens.
The article from Diana Müller named „Das Erleben von Besuchern in historischen Gärten und Parks am Beispiel Sanssouci-Potsdam – Erste Ergebnisse” has been published in Groß, S.; Peters, J.; Roth, R.; Schmude, J.; Zehrer, A. (Ed.) (2019): Wandel im Tourismus. Internationalität, Demografie und Digitalisierung. Berlin, S. 95-109.
For more information contact Diana Müller: di.mueller@ostfalia.de