The Effect of Plant Dense Landscapes in Ecoturism Activities on Older People’s

Abstract

Today, nature-based ecotourism activities have started to gain importance. The perception of feeling safe is very important among space preferences. In studies, it is known that the feeling of security directly affects the space preferences of the users in the advanced age group. Therefore, in terms of landscape planning, there is a need for security perception analyzes in different ecotourism activity proposal studies in natural areas. In this study; safety perception analysis of natural trekking and photo safari routes that can be used by the elderly in Kalınçam village, which was declared as a tourism village, was included. Using 7 photographs of the area, the fear/anxiety of the natural areas for the elderly were analyzed. Expert evaluation was made to determine the degree of visual effectiveness of the photographs. Then, a questionnaire was applied to 100 people over the age of 55 in the virtual environment by visual quality analysis method. In particular, the level of relationship between landscape beauty and feeling safe was tried to be determined. According to the results of the Pearson Correlation test conducted in this context; it was determined that there was a statistically positive relationship between fear/anxiety and plant-dominated natural landscape appearance in most of the images (G1, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7), and there was a significant relationship (p<.05) in the G2 image. As a result of the research, it was determined that there is a significant relationship (a linear proportion) between landscape beauty with dense vegetation and fear/anxiety status for the elderly.