Investigation on Visitors' Perceptions of Recreation Impacts in Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area in Taiwan

This research attempts to understand the visitors' perceptions of the environmental impacts caused by six recreational activities by using Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area in Taiwan. The six recreational activities were fishing, camping, trail use, swimming, biking and motorboating. It compared the visitors' perceptions of the recreation impacts before and after the environmental impact information was provided. The convenience sampling method was used during three weekends in August 2005. The results indicated that visitors in the study were aware of the environmental impacts caused by the six recreational activities. The most harmful activity among all was motorboating and the most harmless one was biking. In addition, different variables such as gender, age and preference influenced visitors' perceptions of the recreation impacts of different types of activity. Overall, after receiving the environmental information, the visitors' perceptions of all activities moved to being more harmful than their previous perceptions. This means the environmental impact information sheet given in the post-test did change the perception of recreational impacts. In general, visitors viewed their own activities as having fewer recreational impacts than non-participants, except for the boating activity.