Visitor Perception on Urban Green Space and its Contribution for Human Well-being, A Case Study for Henarathgoda Botanic Garden

Abstract

Botanical gardens vary widely in design and purpose, but most are typically associated with Ex-situ conservation, education, or historical interpretation. Yet, few studies have shown that botanic garden visitors are often motivated by recreational and leisure interests. While visitor motivations and benefits have been the focus of a number of botanical garden and green space visitor studies. The main objective of the study was to investigate the perceptions of benefits for wellbeing of community, by visiting Henarathgoda Botanic Garden (HBG) and the Specific objectives were; to identify the range of different specialized visitors to the HBG, identify the activity patterns of community visitation associated with HBG and to examine visitor preferences/perceptions for various combinations of social, resource and management conditions, and study the different wellbeing benefits obtained by visiting the garden related to physical and aesthetics aspects. This study employed means-end theory to investigate the links visitors make between garden attributes, consequences, and values. Structured questionnaire based in-person interviews were conducted with garden visitors (n=200) and surveys took place representing whatsoever the community visiting the HBG during February to March 2022. The overall study resulted that the garden visitation has been drastically affected by COVID-19 pandemic situation before, during, and after the pandemic respectively. This study reveals that the main top two reasons for visiting the HBG of respondent were because of relaxation and pleasure. This shows HBG should provide a suitable place for recreational activities for visitors. Further, the highest percentage of the respondents (36%) were commented that HBG‘s management should consider improving the services providing and maintaining more facilities and need for the visitors. The most positive benefit wanted to gain responders by visiting HBG, which was understanding and enjoying nature in different garden sections established at HBG (42%).

Keywords: Urban green spaces, Well-being benefits, Botanic garden, Psychological benefits, Questionnaire survey