• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.50-63
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• 2014

Eco-tourism has been recognized as a form of sustainable development that simultaneously satisfies the need for environmental preservation and the activation of local economies. Although some research findings relating to its positive environmental and social effects have been published, there is still controversy regarding its pros and cons in terms of its actual economic benefits, and little research about how they can be increased. Thus, the following research analyzes how the tour activities, attitudes and satisfaction of 314 actual visitors was related with their consumption behaviors, by surveying tourists to Suncheon Bay, a highly popular destination with a large number of visitors. The results are as follows. First, if the tourists were involved in a link-up tour, had prior eco-tourism experience, or had researched information on SunCheon bay eco-tourism before their visit, these were all positively correlated with consumption behaviors, and increased the amount of money they spent. In particular, among tour spending activities, accommodation cost is shown to be highly correlated with tour activities. Second, Free Independent Tourist(FIT) tended to show more positive tour attitudes than package tourists, spending more on accommodation and experience programs. The visitors to SunCheon Bay showed strong environmental attitudes, followed by social and cultural attitudes, and economic attitudes, in that order, and tourists with positive attitudes had a high rate of participation in experience programs. In addition, program participants showed a willingness to donate, and high satisfaction. Therefore, the following thesis proposes that Free Independent Tourist(FIT) should be induced to increase their contribution to the local eco-tourism economy, and highlights the need to develop various experience programs, aggressive advertisements and educational activities.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2016

The role of rural towns as a leisure space has recently been increasing with changes in the consumption trends in domestic tourism. Based on the tourists visiting the town of Sunheul-ri, Jocheon-eup, a rural Village in Jeju Island, this study categorized the market according to the images formed by the tourists of rural towns, and analyzed the preferred mode of participation in rural field activities for each category. We analyzed the characteristic factors of the images of rural tourism formed by the tourists, extracted three factors for cluster analysis, and then formed three groups: "Group of Rural Experience Activity" "Group of Rural Environment and Service" and "Group of Rest in the Rural" After analyzing the preferred activity in each image-category group, we found no significant differences among the groups in ordinary activities such as viewing the scenery, experiencing and learning about the natural environment, and culinary experiences. However, there were significant differences among the groups regarding participation in experiential tour programs with the purpose of active tourism. The "Group of Rural Experience Activity" sought to actively participate in various activity programs, whereas the "Group of Rest in the Rural" comparatively had a weaker preference for such active programs. We thus learnt that tourists' preferred activities are different according to the types of images formed by the tourists visiting rural towns. Therefore, to strengthen the competitive advantage of the rural tourist destinations of Jeju Island, it is necessary to provide various activity programs that are appropriate for the rural regions of Jeju and to accord with the expectations associated with each market segment category by positioning the programs according to the characteristics of the images held by the tourists.