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Tourism Recreation Research
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rtrr20
What attracts tourists to press the shutter in cultural
heritage tourism? An analysis of visitor-employed
photography and visual attributes: a case study on
Japan’s Kairakuen Garden
Huixin Wang, Shixian Luo & Katsunori Furuya
To cite this article: Huixin Wang, Shixian Luo & Katsunori Furuya (2024) What attracts tourists
to press the shutter in cultural heritage tourism? An analysis of visitor-employed photography
and visual attributes: a case study on Japan’s Kairakuen Garden, Tourism Recreation Research,
49:6, 1483-1499, DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2022.2153993
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2022.2153993
Published online: 19 Dec 2022.
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What attracts tourists to press the shutter in cultural heritage tourism? An
analysis of visitor-employed photography and visual attributes: a case study on
Japan’s Kairakuen Garden
Huixin Wang , Shixian Luo and Katsunori Furuya
Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan
ABSTRACT
Tourism behaviour in cultural heritage gardens presents opportunities and challenges for
sustainable management. Understanding visitor perceptions and assessments of visual resources
in cultural heritage gardens are of great interest to heritage site managers. Using a case study of
the Kairakuen Garden in Japan, we collected images (N = 430) and geographic data of tourist
photos in the heritage garden through visitor-employed photography technology to analyse
what hotspots attract tourists to take photos. We also evaluated the visual attributes of photo
hotspots using a questionnaire. The results reveal that the most common elements in tourist
images were plant landscapes and human-made structures and that the 12 photo hotspots of the
Kairakuen Garden were placed along the ocially recommended tour routes, indicating that
tourists identify the ocially approved scenery. Furthermore, there are four main hotspot areas;
they received significant dierent visual attributes assessments in ‘scenic beauty’, ‘complexity’,
‘mystery’, and ‘diversity’. Based on these findings, it is possible to understand tourists’ visual
perceptions and preferences and to make recommendations for the management of the
Kairakuen Garden and other cultural heritage gardens.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 25 August 2022
Accepted 26 November 2022
KEYWORDS
Cultural heritage garden;
visitor-employed
photography; tourists’ visual
preference; visual attributes;
geo-information
Introduction
Cultural heritage has multiple cultural values and mean-
ings, such as historical, artistic, and scientific, and is sig-
nificant for transmitting the memory of the
development of human society and fostering future sus-
tainable development (UNESCO, 1972). The United
Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
declared that one of the goals of sustainable develop-
ment is to preserve the world’s cultural heritage
(UNESCO, 2015). Global urbanisation and economic
development bring opportunities and challenges for
the sustainable management of cultural heritage, with
the impact of tourism on cultural heritage sites being
of particular importance (Landorf, 2009). Tourism has
boosted the region’s economic growth and awareness
of the value of cultural heritage, but site managers
face challenges in balancing tourist behaviour with the
sustainable conservation of heritage sites (Balomenou
& Garrod, 2016). In this context, developing sustainable
tourism is a crucial goal and has been explored exten-
sively in previous studies (Hardy et al., 2002; Liu, 2003).
The World Tourism Organization (2001) highlights sus-
tainable tourism as a balance between the needs of tour-
ists and the preservation of local resources.
A great number of gardens that blended some con-
structed structures with the natural environment to
create a distinctive setting are included on the
UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL). Among a series of
dierent styles of gardens, Japanese gardens are repre-
sentative of the Japanese landscape style and have a
certain inuence and attraction worldwide (Tachibana
et al., 2004). According to Japan’s Cultural Property Pro-
tection Law, Japanese gardens are classified as ‘historical
site scenic natural memorial’ under the Cultural Property
90 Classification. Most of them are ‘historical sites’ or
‘scenic spots’ (Cultural Properties Agency for Cultural
Aairs, n.d.). These Japanese heritage gardens should
be used for community development and tourism in
addition to being protected as properties (Yasuhara &
Liu, 2021). According to ocial statistics, heritage
gardens remained a popular tourist destination in
Japan, with 792401 visitors to nine Tokyo metropolitan
gardens in 2020, even during the peak of COVID-19 pan-
demic. Therefore, it is important to understand the
behaviour of visitors to the historic Japanese gardens
and to develop tourism while preventing the negative
impact of overuse, which stated by the document from
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Katsunori Furuya k.furuya@faculty.chiba-u.jp Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, 648 Matsudo, Chiba 271-0092, Japan
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH
2024, VOL. 49, NO. 6, 1483–1499
https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2022.2153993
the Tokyo Metropolitan Construction Bureau (Tokyo
Metropolitan Construction Bureau, 2017).
Understanding visitors’ on-site perceptions and pre-
ferences for cultural heritage sites is crucial that man-
agers could benefit it to enhance heritage site
planning and management (Poria et al., 2009). Existing
research suggests that visitors’ on-site perceptions of
and preferences for the environment can be explained
from a visual and aesthetic standpoint (Steen Jacobsen,
2007; Fyhri et al., 2009). The landscape perception
model mentions ‘perceived complexity’, ‘coherence’,
‘legibility’, and ‘mystery’ as criteria that can be used to
assess the visual quality of a landscape (Kaplan, 1987).
Visual attributes can be used to predict and reect on
people’s preferences for landscape environments
(Zhang et al., 2021). The visual and aesthetic aspects of
the landscape in tourist locations inuence tourists’
experiences and levels of satisfaction (Lee et al., 2011;
Schirpke et al., 2013). Understanding the link between
visual features and tourist preferences for destination
environments can guide destination managers in
improving planning and management (Sugimoto,
2018). Visual attributes have been combined with
dierent research approaches to further understand
people’s preferences for dierent landscape environ-
ments (de la Fuente de Val et al., 2006; Fyhri et al.,
2009), indicating that certain initiatives have the pro-
spects to analyse tourists’ preferences in Japanese heri-
tage gardens from a visual perspective.
Visitor-employed photography (VEP) is a technique
that uses participant-generated images (PGI), which
are mostly used in nature recreation and tourism-
related studies, first proposed by Cherem in the
1970s (Balomenou & Garrod, 2016; Cherem, 1972).
This technique emphasises public engagement and
experience, and one of its primary advantages is
that it allows us to analyse actual participant experi-
ences and reactions rather than simulated ones
(Steen Jacobsen, 2007). The VEP technique has been
used to investigate and study a wide range of sites
as it has been used extensively to highlight visitor
experiences in national parks (Lee & Son, 2017; Rath-
mann et al., 2020), geoparks (Fung & Jim, 2015), and
wildlife reserves (Fefer et al., 2020). Garrod believes
that the VEP technique has great potential and
benefits for research on heritage tourism, planning,
and management (Garrod, 2007). In the field of heri-
tage tourism studies, evidence shows that the VEP
approach can be used to better understand visitors’
experiences on a pilgrimage route (Gou & Shibata,
2017) and investigate the meaning that visitors
place on cultural heritage site (Bapiri et al., 2021).
However, no previous studies have attempted to use
the VEP method to investigate tourists’ visual prefer-
ences in heritage gardens.
Visitors’ visual preferences may predict some of the
sightseeing hotspots on site and investigating these
visual preferences can aid in tourism management in
heritage gardens, especially overcoming the promising
conict between tourists experience and over-use of
the source in heritage gardens. Thus, this study aims
to understand visitors’ perceptions and assessments of
a cultural heritage site’s visual resources by examining
their responses when visiting the site.
This research employs VEP technology to capture
geographical data from photographs taken by tourists
in the Kairakuen Garden, a cultural heritage garden in
Japan. We analysed the photos taken by tourists them-
selves as well as the spatial distribution of these
photos, using geospatial data to generate hotspots
where tourists take photos. Furthermore, a question-
naire was used to assess the visual attributes of hotspots
where tourists take photos to investigate what attracts
tourists to press the shutter in cultural heritage
tourism and what visual attributes, they prefer in the cul-
tural heritage garden. The specific research questions of
this study are as follows:
(1) What landscape elements entice tourists to photo-
graph the cultural heritage garden?
(2) What are the visual attributes of the hotspots that
attract tourists to take pictures?
(3) What are the areas that become the main hotspots
for visitors to take photos?
Based on these elements, some suggestions are made
for the image and spatial management of cultural heri-
tage sites to optimise visitor management, furthermore,
the results can be served as a basis for understanding
visitor preference to promote sustainable conservation
of the similar sites (Figure 1).
Literature review
This section reviews the relevant literature that impli-
cates the VEP method and literature on visual preference
in tourism, aiming to build up the theoretical framework
of this study. A compilation of the related literature is
given in Appendix 1.
As researchers mentioned, PGI methods have been
widely applied in the social science field, and the VEP
method, which not only recruits tourists but local resi-
dents as well, is a reliable assessment tool in terms of
tourism and recreation management research (Balome-
nou & Garrod, 2016; Sun et al., 2019; Tian et al., 2021).
It has been performed in various scales of environment
1484 H. WANG ET AL.
settings, such as large scale as National Wildlife Refuge
(Fefer et al., 2020), Forest National Park (Rathmann
et al., 2020), and middle scale as urban forest (Heyman,
2012), to be considered as a valuable tool to investigate
visitors’ perception in tourism recreation research. For a
relatively small scale, prevailing evidence suggests that it
can be used to investigate visitors’ recreational prefer-
ences in urban parks (Sugimoto, 2013, 2018), as well as
the outdoor environment in nursing homes (Liu et al.,
2021). In the field of heritage tourism, scholars have
tried to use the VEP method in the context of Iranian
heritage tourism (Bapiri et al., 2021). Nevertheless,
empirical research in intimate-scale settings such as
East Asian heritage gardens, which include Japanese
gardens, is still lacking.
In general, the process of the VEP method includes
collecting photographs of visitors taken on-site and con-
ducting qualitative or quantitative analyses of this par-
ticipant-generated content (Dorwart et al., 2009; Fung
& Jim, 2015). In addition to often involving basic pro-
cedures, VEP can be a powerful tool in combination
with various other supplemental methods. Researchers
can implement supplementary semi-structured inter-
views (Fefer et al., 2020), unstructured interviews
(Hansen, 2016), and follow-up questionnaires (MacKay
& Couldwell, 2004; Oku & Fukamachi, 2006) to determine
the depth of the information that participants wish to
express. These photo-inspired data are authentic and
reliable and emphasise the perception of the partici-
pant’s visual perspective (MacKay & Couldwell, 2004).
However, researchers must exercise extreme caution in
selecting an appropriate method to interpret photo
datasets to demonstrate their worth (Garrod, 2007).
Authors believe that using a questionnaire to assess
the visual attributes of each photo hotspot could tran-
scribe the meaning of visual data and respond research
question number two. Therefore, in the second part of
this study, a follow-up questionnaire was used to
assess the visual attributes of each photo hotspot.
With the innovation of spatial-related technology,
many other studies have mixed several mapping tools
to investigate the on-site experiences of participants
from a spatial and temporal analysis point of view. Sugi-
moto (2018) used GIS-based technology and visitor pho-
tography logs to examine visitors’ perceptions of urban
parks. Liu et al. (2021) conducted VEP and behaviour
mapping to explore the elderly’s preference for the
outdoor environment. Sun et al. (2019) combined the
VEP method and SolVES mapping tool to assess the
social value of ecosystem services in urban green
spaces. Researchers proposed that image locations be
considered in future visual imagery studies of the
tourism and recreation fields (Michelini et al., 2022). By
combining this method with spatial data, both visual
and spatial data can be obtained, which can be used
not only to analyse the visual content that attracts visi-
tors but also to understand the specific location of
these visually attractive scenes distributed in the
object site. Therefore, we strongly believe that, in
addition to traditional text data collection, combining
the VEP method with geo-information can be eective
in cultural heritage tourism studies.
In previous VEP method-related investigations,
researchers supplied cameras as a common medium to
help visitors obtain photos (Bapiri et al., 2021; Heyman,
2012; MacKay & Couldwell, 2004; Sugimoto, 2013).
Figure 1. Research Framework. Source: drawn by the author.
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1485
Nevertheless, using cameras provided by researchers
could have limitations such as increased expenditures for
research and time spent on instruction in camera use.
Nowadays, many scholars have demonstrated that smart-
phones are a useful tool in conducting field VEP studies
(Hansen, 2016; Liu et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2019). Smart-
phones have the advantage of being easily accessible,
low cost, and can combine the functions of taking pictures
and obtaining GPS data. There is great potential for the use
of smartphones in cultural heritage-related research
(Slavec et al., 2021), so we decided to use smartphones
as a data collection medium in our on-site investigation.
Assessment of visual attractiveness is crucial for
tourism management since tourism is uniquely visual;
for example, marketing with the right destination
image that tourists find particularly attractive will facili-
tate better tourism management (Nicoletta & Servidio,
2012). Zhang suggested that GPS data and participant
images could be combined to further understand the
visual attraction mechanisms and visitor behaviour in
cultural heritage gardens (Zhang et al., 2020). To the
best of our knowledge, there is still a lack of analysis
combining visual attributes with VEP techniques in heri-
tage tourism-related studies. This research, thus, aim to
fill this gap.
Materials and methods
Study site
The Kairakuen Garden is a 13-hectare garden in Mito
City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, which was built in 1842
by Saitaki Tokugawa, the ninth lord of the Mito
domain. It is one of Japan’s three most famous
gardens, along with Gohaku-en (Okayama City,
Okayama) and Kanroku-en (Kanazawa City, Ishikawa).
As a grade A tourism source in Japan, it is representative
of a typical Japanese garden that combined natural
environment and Japanese constructions and has
become one of the popular tourist destinations, having
been designated as both ‘historical sites’ and ‘scenic
spots’ under Japan’s Cultural Property Protection Law.
In 2015, it was recognised by the Agency for Cultural
Aairs of Japan as one of the ‘Educational Heritage of
Modern Japan’. It is one of the most famous sightseeing
spots in Ibaraki prefecture, and it has been rec-
ommended by Japan National Tourism Organization
(JNTO). According to the local government’s business
report, The Kairakuen Garden received approximately
100,000 visitors per year from 2016 to 2018 (Kairakuen
Tsukiike District Development Project (Park-PFI)
website, n.d.). The COVID-19 pandemic would obviously
have an impact on local tourism marketing; however, in
the post-epidemic era, the Japanese government is lib-
eralising and promoting tourism to attract domestic
and international visitors. It is therefore critical to inves-
tigate visitor visual preferences and potential tourist hot-
spots to promote sustainable tourism to the heritage
gardens represented in our study.
Figure 2 depicts this study’s boundaries, excluding
Lake Senba and other expanded green areas and only
the main garden and entrance part of the Kairakuen
Garden, which was built in 1842. The Kobuten pavilion
area was also excluded from the study because the
Kobuten pavilion in the park was being restored
during the field experiment. According to the garden’s
management, you can feel the transition of ‘yin’ and
‘yang’ by entering through the Omotemon gate of Kair-
akuen, passing through the cedar and bamboo forest,
and finally arriving on the open lawn (Kairakuen and
Kodokan ocial web site, n.d.). Based on the Yin and
Yang experience introduced by the management of
the Kairakuen Garden as well as its spatial composition,
we divided the Kairakuen Garden into five areas for
further research and discussion: A. entrance area, B.
plum grove area, C. Yin area, D. Kobuten pavilion area,
and E. Yang area (Figure 2). The A entrance area includes
the eastern access area outside the Kairakuen Garden
and the East Gate, which is currently one of the
primary entrances. The B Plum Grove Area is where all
the plum trees are planted; the C Yin Area is where all
the bamboo and cedar trees are planted, beginning at
Hoomunjeong’s table gate; and the D Kobuten Pavilion
area is a small courtyard where Hoomunjeong is
located. The E Yang area is a large lawn in the south of
the Kairakuen Garden, with nearly no trees compared
to the Yin area, and has an open view.
Participants
It has been suggested that dierent types of people have
a very high consensus on environmental aesthetics
(Stamps, 1999). There have also been previous related
studies soliciting university student volunteers to
conduct analyses of tourists’ interest surveys (Heyman,
2012; Loeer, 2004; Sugimoto, 2013, 2018; Sun et al.,
2019). Moreover, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pan-
demic, there are fewer visitors, and most visitors are less
inclined to spend more time participating in the exper-
iment, making on-site recruitment dicult, and there
are financial considerations regarding the experiment.
Therefore, we distributed notices via social media to
recruit students interested in visiting the heritage
garden as tourists. Other advantages of this approach
include the ease of coordinating participants’ schedules,
reducing the risk of contracting COVID-19, and with
1486 H. WANG ET AL.
relatively few tourists in the garden during the pandemic,
the content of the photos taken by visitors will be less
aected by other tourists. To complete the experiment,
we recruited a total of 20 volunteers; a sample size we
believe is reasonable for the area of our study site
drawing from previous studies (Bapiri et al., 2021;
Dorwart et al., 2009; Fefer et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2021; Sugi-
moto, 2013, 2018), with 11 female and nine male volun-
teers ranging in age from 23 to 34 years, with an
average age of 25.6 ± 2.55 years. The aims of the exper-
iment and the requirements of the volunteers were
thoroughly outlined before the field experiment began.
Procedure
On 5 June and 11 June, 2021, we conducted two field
experiments with 10 volunteers on each of the two
days with similar weather conditions, that is, clear and
less cloudy days with an average temperature of approxi-
mately 21 °C, which is considered suitable for touring the
garden. Garrod (2007) pointed out that a potential down-
side of the VEP technique is that respondents are not
accustomed to using multiple cameras during the tour,
namely the researcher-provided camera and their own
mobile camera, which may result in failure to record
some key scenes. To avoid such situations, we advised
visitors to use their smartphones to record geographic
coordinates during photography. During the tour, visitors
were encouraged to capture scenes that appealed to
them. There was no set limit on the number of pictures
each person could take; however, it was suggested that
each respondent could take between 15 and 30 photos.
To ensure that visitors could visit the entire Kairakuen
Garden without getting lost, we devised a tour route
from the east gate of the garden, via the plum trees,
into the yin area, and then back to the entrance area
from the yang area (Figure 2). Visitors followed this
route to visit the park but were not restricted to it and
were allowed to visit any accessible area. After the site
tour, visitors uploaded their photos with geographical
coordinates to a designated Google Cloud drive.
Data processing
Analysis of photo content and geographic
information
This study categorised the primary landscape elements
in all the photographs based on previous research
Figure 2. The boundaries of the study site and partition. Map source: Japan National Geographical Service and Open Street map,
drawn by the author. Photo source: taken by the author.
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1487
related to aesthetic and landscape elements (Deng et al.,
2020; Jahani & Saariha, 2020) and examined them in
the expert group, including three PhD students and
one landscape architecture professor from Chiba Univer-
sity. In this study, all landscape elements in the images
were classified into two main categories: artificial and
natural elements, with various sub-categories within
each major category.
The geographic coordinates of all images were
extracted and organised into a vector dataset in a
“.csv” format in EXCEL. These coordinates were used as
the tourists’ chosen interest sites and imported into
Quantum Geographical Information System (QGIS) for
further analysis and processing. A grid with a horizontal
and vertical interval of 50 m was created to cover the
entire study site, and the number of tourist photo inter-
est points in the polygon was counted to identify the
hotspot areas attracting visitors to take photos. Hotspots
were determined as places with more than 10 photos in
a 50 m*50 m region. The distribution of photo hotspots
for natural and artificial elements was investigated sep-
arately from the distribution of all images. After review-
ing the photos, we discovered that if the distance is less
than 50 m, the photo contents of nearby hotspots may
be duplicated, implying that these areas should have
the same landscape. Therefore, we believe that an area
of approximately 50 m*50 m can be employed as a sep-
arate standing viewing area to map dierent viewing
points.
Evaluating the visual attributes of hotspot areas
Hotspot sites where visitors took photos were identified
based on the analysis in the previous step, and the visual
attributes of the landscape in the hotspot areas were
evaluated using a follow-up questionnaire survey. We
created a scale (Table 1) to analyse the visual attributes
of hotspot areas in this study by referring to the scale
and cognitive factors that inuence visual aesthetic pre-
ferences in previous comparable studies (de la Fuente de
Val et al., 2006; Sevenant & Antrop, 2009). Considering
that the judgement of visual attributes requires some
expertise, students from xx University’s landscape archi-
tecture and horticultural science majors were recruited
to conduct the evaluation, ensuring high reliability and
consistency of the results. In the questionnaire, we first
asked the respondents to read detailed descriptions of
all the evaluation criteria, browse the Google Street
View panoramas and on-site photos taken by visitors
representing each hotspot, and evaluate the visual attri-
butes of each hotspot using a seven-point Likert scale,
based on the previously mentioned evaluation criteria.
The evaluation team consisted of 56 experts, and 56
valid responses were collected. First, data from 10
visual attributes for each hotspot were subjected to
descriptive statistical analysis. Subsequently, based on
the locations and content of photos of the 12 hotspots,
we integrated all the hotspots into four main hot areas,
and a one-way ANOVA was applied to these four areas to
compare the dierence in visual attributes assessment.
Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Stat-
istics version 26.
Results
Main landscape elements in the photos
The images captured by one visitor were eliminated
because they lacked geographic coordinates. Finally,
430 images with precise geographical coordinates
were collected, with each participant taking an
average of 23 photos. Among them were 216 photos
with natural elements and 214 with artificial features in
the main content of the landscape. As shown in
Table 2, we categorised all-natural elements into three
categories – plant landscape, waterscape, and sky –
and subdivided them within each category. Similarly,
we divided the artificial elements into six categories:
facilities, human-made structures, routes, histories and
symbols, people, and others, with more comprehensive
labelling under each category (Table 3).
Among the natural elements, the integrated plant land-
scape tree is the most common sub-category, followed by
bamboo and creek. This is probably because of the Kaira-
kuen Garden’s enormous amount of green space, particu-
larly in the yin area, which is densely forested with
Table 1. Scale of the visual attributes
Visual attributes Question and scale
Scenic beauty Assign a value to the scene you see based on the
beauty of the landscape; the better the beauty, the
higher the score
Coherence Evaluate the scenery’s degree of coherence; assign a
lower value if there are visually inconsistent and
strange elements
Legibility Assign a lower value if you think the scene is
confusing or difficult to interpret
Complexity Assess the diversity of the spatial structure of each
scene; the more complex the spatial structure, the
higher the score
Mystery Assign a high value if you believe the scene hides
information, that is, there are elements hidden
from the observer
Diversity Assign a high value if you believe the scene has
many different aspects and elements
Sense of security Assign a low score if you believe the scene’s
elements are dangerous
Pattern Assign a high value if you think the scenery in the
scene has regular repeating elements or clear
patterns
Valuable for
conservation
Assign a high value if you think the scene has a high
conservation value
Of historical
ambience
Assign a high value if you think the scene has a
strong historical ambience and sense of history
1488 H. WANG ET AL.
bamboo and fir trees. Second, in the southwest of the Kair-
akuen Garden, there is a little stream that is the park’s lone
water feature and draws visitors’ attention.
Among artificial elements, path and gate are the most
common sub-categories, and there are five gates in the
Kairakuen Garden, in addition to the shibasakimo gate
and Nakamori gate that separate the yin and yang areas.
The gates divide the space and guide the direction so
that visitors can clearly feel the transition of the space,
which is probably one of the reasons they take pictures.
Among the artificial elements, in addition to paths and
gates, buildings, fences, benches, and historic sites are fre-
quently observed.
Hotspot to take photos
After analysing and processing the geographic infor-
mation data, 12 photo hotspots were obtained, and
these hotspots were named C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7,
C8, C9, E10, E11, E12, based on our zoning of the Kaira-
kuen Garden. Figure 3 depicts their distribution in the
park, with ‘C’ representing the yin area and ‘E’, the
yang area. Representative images captured by visitors
in hotspot zones are presented in Table 4, along with
their profiles. The hotspots may be seen to be mainly
located along the pre-planned tour route and solely in
the yin and yang areas, with no hotspots in the other
divisions. E10, E11, and E12 were all located near the
Japanese chess grounds south of the miharashi plaza,
which is similar to the high-density wooded area of
the yin area. Unlike the densely wooded yin region,
these three areas have a clear view of the garden and
can be viewed from the south.
Table 2. Natural elements in the photos.
Category Description Sub-categories
Number of
photos Total
Plant
landscape
The main content
in the photo is
plant landscapes.
Bamboo 22 154
Flowers 9
Grass 2
Huge old tree 5
Integrated
plant
landscape
24
Lawn 19
Leaves 3
Moss 3
Pine 7
Plum 9
Plum tree 8
Root 5
Shrub 7
Tree 24
Tree stump 3
Trunk 4
Waterscape
and sky
The main content
in the photo is
water or sky.
Creek 21 58
Lake outside
the garden
9
Sky 16
Small waterfall 12
Other Other natural
elements
Mud 1 4
Cobweb 2
Mushrooms on
a tree stump
1
Table 3. Artificial elements in the photos.
Category Description Sub-categories
Number of
photos Total
Facilities The main content in the photo is the management facilities in the garden, such as
seats and signs.
Bench 15 26
Guide sign 3
Interpretive board 7
Entrance and shop 1
Human-made
structure
The main landscape elements in the photo are artificially constructed structures of
non-management facilities.
Bridge 7 89
Building 16
Gate 36
Fence 16
Pavilion 13
Roof 1
Route The main content in the photo is the variety of routes. Path 38 60
Plank road 10
Step 11
Trail 1
History and
symbols
The main landscape element in the photo can reflect some historical background
or the element has iconic significance.
Historic site 14 22
Stele 7
Marking of cultural
heritage
1
People The main landscape elements in the photo are people. Tourists 9 12
Managers 2
People in kimono 1
Other Other artificial elements Railroad tracks outside the
garden
3 5
Tram outside the garden 2
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1489
Visual attributes of hotspots
Table 5 shows how the 12 photographic hotspot sites
were rated on 10 dierent visual attributes from the
follow-up questionnaire. From C6 to C8 and E10 to
E12, these six hotspots have excellent ‘scenic beauty’
ratings. C5 has the highest photo distribution and the
highest ‘complexity’ and ‘diversity’ scores. C2 and C1
were the second and third most photographed areas,
respectively, with high scores in the attributes ‘valuable
for conservation’ and ‘of historical ambience’. C1
includes a gate in the northwest of the Kairakuen
Garden, and C2 has a gate to the bamboo forest; these
gates are recurring elements in the on-site photos. E10
received the highest scores for all four attributes:
‘scenic beauty’, ‘sense of security’, ‘valuable for conserva-
tion’, and ‘of historical ambience’.
Dierence analysis of four main hotspots areas
Based on the locations and content of the photographs
of the 12 hotspots, we integrated them into four main
hot areas, as shown in Figure 4. Area 1 contains the
northwestern entrance of the Kairakuen Garden and a
part of the bamboo forest; Area 2 represents the
landscape around the Togyokusen spring, including a
spring stream and a small pavilion; Area 3 is mainly
located between two gates in the middle of the Kaira-
kuen Garden, including a path and an undergrowth
gathering space; and Area 4 is near the large lawn in
the south, with a wide view of the outside of the
garden and the Kobuten pavilion.
Table 6 shows the results of the one-way ANOVA test
of the assessment of 10 visual attributes in the four main
hot areas; evaluations of ‘scenic beauty’, ‘complexity’,
‘mystery’, and ‘diversity’ in those four main hot areas
have a significant dierence.
Figure 5 shows the results of the post-test for the
visual attributes among the four areas. Regarding the
evaluation of the ‘scenic beauty’, Areas 2 and 4
received relatively high ratings, and both were signifi-
cantly higher than Area 3. Ratings for Areas 2 and 4
were also significantly higher than those in Area
1. Area 2 received the highest score in the ‘complexity’
rating and was significantly higher than that of the
other three areas. In terms of ‘mystery’, Area 1 gained
the best evaluation, which was significantly higher
than Area 2 and Area 3. As for the ‘diversity’, Area 2
obtained the best score and was significantly higher
than the other three areas. In addition, Area 4 had
Figure 3. Hotspots of all the photos. Source: drawn by the author.
1490 H. WANG ET AL.
Table 4. Representative photos of each hotspot.
C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
C7
C8
C9
E10
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1491
the second most assessment in ‘diversity’ and was sig-
nificantly higher than Areas 1 and 3.
Discussions
What landscape elements attract tourists to take
pictures?
In this section, we analyse the content of the photo-
graphs to respond to research question one. Across
the element categories in the on-site photos, ‘plant land-
scape’, which is a natural element, was the most fre-
quently photographed by visitors, followed by ‘human-
made structures’, which are artificial elements. Gou
and Shibata (2017) indicated that when visiting heritage
sites, people tend to take more photos of natural
elements when they are informed in advance of partici-
pating in a VEP survey than when they take photos spon-
taneously. The results of this study are consistent with
those reported in the literature. Therefore, we believe
that one reason for the high level of attention paid to
the plant landscape by visitors taking photos in the Kair-
akuen Garden is that they were told in advance to par-
ticipate in the survey and take photos. In addition, the
Kairakuen Garden itself has a large green area with
many plants and a relatively low density of buildings.
This makes the ‘plant landscape’, the element that
appears most in visitors’ images.
In terms of ‘human-made structures’, it includes six
dierent kinds of sub-categories which are bridge, build-
ing, gate, fence, pavilion, and roof. Among them, ‘door’
is the most frequent sub-category. The photos contain-
ing the element of ‘door’ were located in C1, C2, C8,
and C9. By analysing the geographical information in
the photos, we found that these four hotspots are just
the starting and ending points of the Yin area. The
appearance of the gate gives a hint of spatial transform-
ation, and the surrounding scenery changes in dierent
styles, which may be the reason tourists are attracted to
record this element.
Although the Kairakuen Garden is a heritage garden
with historical and cultural significance and with nine
historical monuments, there is little content in the cat-
egory of history and symbols in the images taken by
tourists, and only seven of the photographs contain
the element of stele. Previous research has demon-
strated that monuments will not attract visitors to
photographs if they only allow visitors to interact with
them (Slavec et al., 2021). One view of heritage
tourism is that it is a tourist activity in a space where
history and culture are displayed, whereas another
view is that it is an interaction between tourists’ self-per-
ception and heritage sites (Poria et al., 2004). We argue
that the content of the photographs reects visitors’
records and subjective perceptions, but that this does
not imply that visitors ignore Kairakuen Garden’s histori-
cal content because the gates and buildings that often
appear in the photographs have their historical value,
albeit less obvious than some landmarks and monu-
ments. According to this study, visitors prefer scenes
that indirectly impart historical meaning, such as gates
and buildings, over scenes that clearly reveal visitors’ his-
torical meanings, such as stone monuments or memor-
ials. We believe that this is a tourist quest and
perception for authenticity in heritage sites, that tourists
care about ‘authenticity’ in heritage sites, as demon-
strated by other relevant studies (Timothy, 2014), and
that tourists’ perceived authenticity is a substantial pre-
dictor of their satisfaction with their experience (Nguyen
& Cheung, 2016). We also suggest that historic site man-
agers should preserve and pass on cultural sites’ ‘auth-
enticity’ rather than turn them into museums or theme
parks (Alberts & Hazen, 2010; Gou & Shibata, 2017)
(see Figure 6).
What visual attributes make a hotspot?
Research question two is discussed in this section. All
hotspots are in the yin or yang areas, which have a
E11
E12
Note: Source: photos taken by visitors.
1492 H. WANG ET AL.
richer and more diverse composition of landscape com-
ponents than the entrance area and the plum grove
area. The contrast between the closed and quiet mood
and the open and continuous atmosphere in these
two areas is also a remarkable experience. The Kairakuen
Garden Management highly recommends a tour. This
means that all photo hotspots are acknowledged by
both tourists and management as classic and represen-
tative views of the Kairakuen Garden.
C5 is the most photographed of the 12 hotspots,
which is located in the southwest area of Kairukuen
Garden near Togyokusen (a natural spring), where visi-
tors can witness dense woods, historic springs, a small
pavilion, and the surrounding stream. When the visual
attributes of these hotspots were assessed, C5 received
the highest scores for ‘complexity’ and ‘diversity’.
Zhang et al. (2021) state that when the landscape main-
tains a sense of order, the richness of landscape
elements positively inuences people’s environmental
preferences, implying that the high complexity and
diversity of landscape elements in the C5 area are
likely to be important factors in attracting tourists to
take photographs.
C1, C2, and E10 received high ratings for the visual
attributes ‘valuable for conservation’ and ‘of historical
ambience’. C2 and C1 are located near the Koubentei
omoteimon gate, and E10 is located near the Kobuten
Pavilion. All three hotspots have a high rate of construc-
tion, and iconic man-made structures such as the
gate and the Kobuten Pavilion can be seen in all three
areas.
Four main hotspots areas for visitors to take
photos
In this subsection, we shall discuss research question
three. The results in ‘dierences analysis of four hot-
spots’ Section show that Area 1 has the highest rating
for ‘mystery’ and is significantly higher than Area 3 and
Area 4, as Area 1 is located at the beginning of the Yin
area of the garden and is also the entrance to the
bamboo forest, so the space is quiet and gives people
a strong sense of mystery, and this sense of mystery is
one of the reasons why this area has become a hot
spot for photography.
Obviously, Area 2 received a relatively high evaluation
in ‘scenic beauty’, ‘complexity’ and ‘diversity’. This main
hotspot area contains C5, C6, and C7, and these three hot-
spots can form a continuous landscape sequence. The
results in ‘Dierences analysis of four hotspots’ Section
show that the ‘diversity’ and ‘complexity’ scores of this
area are significantly higher than those of the other
three areas. Diversity is one of the nine aspects that
Table 5. Mean (standard deviation) of the visual attributes of hotspots.
Hotspot
Number
of photos
Scenic
beauty Coherence Legibility Complexity Mystery Diversity
Sense of
security Pattern
Valuable for
conservation
Of
historical
ambience
C1 23 4.36 (1.420) 4.45 (1.374) 4.75 (1.297) 3.68 (1.363) 3.75 (1.750) 3.98 (1.471) 4.75 (1.455) 3.80 (1.482) 4.96 (1.705) 5.05 (1.803)
C2 29 4.95 (1.458) 5.09 (1.431) 5.00 (1.293) 3.50 (1.414) 4.55 (1.715) 3.75 (1.311) 4.50 (1.335) 4.23 (1.465) 4.96 (1.572) 5.05 (1.566)
C3 18 4.38 (1.434) 4.59 (1.523) 4.66 (1.379) 3.70 (1.662) 3.18 (1.416) 3.73 (1.433) 4.07 (1.548) 3.68 (1.454) 4.09 (1.610) 3.45 (1.572)
C4 11 4.96 (1.348) 5.54 (1.439) 5.30 (1.464) 3.23 (1.477) 4.37 (1.805) 3.27 (1.543) 3.89 (1.473) 4.12 (1.608) 4.54 (1.537) 3.71 (1.592)
C5 51 5.07 (1.399) 4.39 (1.371) 4.30 (1.387) 4.82 (1.390) 3.16 (1.474) 5.04 (1.477) 4.59 (1.385) 3.66 (1.431) 4.50 (1.629) 4.00 (1.662)
C6 16 5.14 (1.420) 4.80 (1.257) 4.55 (1.426) 4.54 (1.489) 3.87 (1.685) 4.75 (1.575) 4.50 (1.427) 4.05 (1.531) 4.75 (1.587) 4.32 (1.619)
C7 12 5.27 (1.408) 4.96 (1.279) 4.89 (1.397) 4.36 (1.519) 3.61 (1.614) 4.84 (1.558) 4.54 (1.220) 3.91 (1.552) 4.64 (1.612) 3.93 (1.661)
C8 11 4.09 (1.311) 4.27 (1.314) 4.61 (1.545) 3.64 (1.285) 3.38 (1.508) 3.77 (1.293) 4.57 (1.399) 4.02 (1.368) 4.39 (1.436) 4.52 (1.465)
C9 13 4.39 (1.397) 4.75 (1.311) 4.84 (1.318) 3.45 (1.334) 3.54 (1.537) 3.73 (1.314) 4.73 (1.300) 4.34 (1.352) 4.57 (1.412) 4.70 (1.572)
E10 11 5.54 (1.334) 5.04 (1.220) 5.00 (1.502) 4.54 (1.572) 3.50 (1.561) 4.75 (1.365) 4.89 (1.410) 4.21 (1.411) 5.30 (1.451) 5.13 (1.573)
E11 15 5.04 (1.501) 5.25 (1.587) 5.30 (1.426) 3.36 (1.313) 2.80 (1.299) 3.95 (1.470) 4.89 (1.855) 4.18 (1.664) 4.55 (1.525) 4.00 (1.607)
E12 17 5.00 (1.427) 4.89 (1.384) 4.89 (1.448) 3.93 (1.412) 2.98 (1.286) 3.95 (1.494) 4.66 (1.529) 4.09 (1.405) 4.52 (1.501) 3.95 (1.577)
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1493
Table 6. Summary of one-way ANOVA results in visual attributes assessment.
Visual attributes Source of variation Sum of squares df Mean Square F Sig.
Test of homogeneity of
variances
Levene statistic Sig.
Scenic beauty Between Groups 33.985 3 11.328 8.454 0 0.546 0.651
Complexity Between Groups 38.713 3 12.904 9.807 0 0.383 0.766
Mystery Between Groups 22.051 3 7.350 4.681 0.003 0.176 0.913
Diversity Between Groups 50.495 3 16.832 14.125 0 0.969 0.408
Note that only the visual attribute evaluations that differed significantly are shown in the table.
Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.
Figure 4. Representative photos of four main hot areas. Source: drawn by the author.
Figure 5. Post-test (LSD) on four visual attributes assessments, Note that according to Table 6, post hoc tests were executed only for
visual attributes with significant ANOVA results. *. The mean difference was considered significant at a 0.05 level of significance. **.
The mean difference was significant at a 0.01 level of significance. ***. The mean difference was significant at a 0.001 level of
significance.
1494 H. WANG ET AL.
make tourist destinations more beautiful (Kirillova et al.,
2014), and Kaplan (1987) identified ‘diversity’ as one of
the four predictors of natural environmental preferences.
The results of this study rearm the beneficial contri-
bution of diversity and complexity to the aesthetic signifi-
cance of cultural heritage sites.
Area 3 did not obtain any high assessments in terms
of visual attributes; however, they were hotspots where
photos were taken. Area 3 is located at the junction of
‘yin’ and ‘yang’, where two gates can be seen, as can
be seen from the representative photos of this area
(shown in Figure 4), where most of the photos taken
by the visitors include the ‘gate’ landscape element.
This result again demonstrates the attractiveness of
the gate as a landscape element for visitors. This result
also suggests that in such cultural heritage gardens,
managers should pay more attention to areas with artifi-
cial structures such as gates, which are likely to become
hot spots for visitors to stay and visit and should be con-
trolled by means such as adding staging spaces to
prevent the negative eects of over-visiting.
Area 4 scored higher in the visual attributes of ‘scenic
beauty’ and ‘diversity’ and was significantly higher than
Areas 1 and 3. The photos taken by visitors here reect
the characteristics of the Kairakuen Garden Yang area,
with almost no tall trees planted and a wide-open view,
giving a sense of visual transparency. The visual charac-
teristics of the two places (yin and yang) are very
dierent from each other and provide a dierent psycho-
logical experience, so it is easy to give visitors a positive
impression. This result confirms the importance of visit-
ing the garden in a certain order.
Managerial recommendations
We propose some recommendations for the manage-
ment and development of other comparable cultural
heritage gardens based on our results because the Kair-
akuen Garden is a typical Japanese heritage garden that
can serve as a model for many other similar cultural heri-
tage sites.
First, our data demonstrate that tourist picture hot-
spots are distributed along ocially recommended
tour routes, indicating that ocial management’s rec-
ommendations are recognised by tourists (Kairakuen
and Kodokan ocial web site, n.d.). As a result, we
believe that administrators of similar heritage gardens
can also examine the garden’s charm in-depth, plan,
and suggest certain fixed tour routes to tourists. Thus,
our findings evident that VEP method could be used
to assist in the design of heritage tourism itineraries as
researcher asserted in previous study (Garrod, 2007).
Second, managers should pay attention to the com-
plexity and diversity of landscape composition while main-
taining and planning the environment in these areas,
thereby increasing the visual appeal of the garden to
Figure 6. (a) photo of gate. (b) photo of stele. Many visitors intend to record gates on the site. Source: photo a taken by the author,
photo b taken by a visitor.
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 1495
visitors. It also implies that the diversity of visual resources
in the environment is likely to contribute to the space’s
popularity and that managers should pay more attention
to areas that have the potential to become tourist hotspots
to mitigate the negative consequences of over-tourism.
Third, our data reveal that tourists are keen to photo-
graph garden structures, which indirectly communicates
the gardens’ historical significance. We believe that
buildings can serve as visual representations when pro-
moting heritage gardens and that managers should pre-
serve and restore them on a regular basis.
Fourth, we believe that the presence of monuments and
landmarks in heritage gardens is significant and meaning-
ful even if they are not visually appealing to visitors.
However, managers should avoid turning heritage
gardens into museums that directly portray history
instead of preserving the gardens’ authenticity and aes-
thetic value while showing visitors their historical context.
Electronic human interpretation around popular buildings
could be considered to allow visitors to learn about the his-
torical background of heritage gardens on the spur of the
moment as well as to promote self-perception and inter-
action between visitors and heritage gardens (see Figure 7).
Conclusions
By combining VEP technology and visual attributes, this
study analysed the content of tourists’ photos while visit-
ing the cultural heritage garden, the distribution of
photo locations in the garden, the visual resources
included in the photos taken by tourists, the hotspots for
tourists to take photos in the cultural heritage garden,
and the visual attributes of these hotspots. It has been
indicated that the most frequently photographed land-
scape elements were plant landscapes and human-made
structures and that the hotspots in the Kairakuen Garden
were located along the ocially recommended tour
routes, indicating that the ocially recommended
scenery was recognised by visitors. This result encourages
managers of such cultural heritage gardens to dig deeper
into the charm of the garden itself and formulate ocially
recommended tour routes. The ‘complexity’ and ‘diversity’
in the visual attributes are important attributes to make an
area a hot spot for photography, so managers can enhance
the visual appeal of the area through appropriate selection
and configuration.
Methodologically, this research is an empirical study
combining VEP and a follow-up questionnaire, proving
that VEP is a potential research tool. Timothy and Boyd
(2006) emphasised that one of the challenges in protect-
ing tourism heritage is preventing wear and tear by large
numbers of tourists. Despite the intimate garden set-
tings are distinct from other larger-scale lands in many
aspects, we believe that the foundation of this approach
could be generalised to other distinctive settings since
the VEP method can help managers identify the hot-
spots on-site, which provides insight into how to
increase the attractiveness of the site. It also allows us
to predict some hotspots to prevent over-tourism in
advance. We strongly believe that future studies could
be conducted at other heritage sites with dierent
scales to obtain more general findings on heritage
tourism.
However, this study has some limitations, including a
single survey period and a lack of volunteers with
diverse backgrounds. We believe that in future research,
Figure 7. Managerial implication.
1496 H. WANG ET AL.
we can conduct on-site experiments during various
seasons and survey visitors from a wide range of cultural
backgrounds and ages.
Based on our findings, we can make some recommen-
dations for the similar heritage garden’s planning and
management, as well as a deeper understanding of visi-
tors’ visual experiences and the garden’s spatial design.
We anticipate that this research will help improve cul-
tural heritage tourism management and promote the
sustainability of cultural heritage sites.
Acknowledgements
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful com-
ments and suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Huixin Wang holds a Master’s degree of landscape architecture
from Chiba University and working as a technical assistant in
the landscape planning laboratory Chiba University. Her
research interests include sustainable development, geo-infor-
mation, sustainable tourism, and urban green infrastructure,
and she is a member of Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU).
Shixian Luo holds a PhD from Chiba University and working as
a post-doctor researcher in the landscape planning laboratory
Chiba University. His research interests include tourism, sus-
tainable development, and urban green–blue space, and he
is a member of the Japanese Institution of Landscape Architec-
ture (JILA) and Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU).
Katsunori Furuya holds a PhD from Chiba University and is a
Professor in the Graduate School of Horticulture at Chiba Uni-
versity. So far, he has published more than 100 papers in Land-
scape and Urban Planning, Forest Policy and Economics, Urban
and Regional Planning Review, Journal of Tropical Forest Man-
agement, and Landscape Research. He has also edited two
books and his research interests include Landscape planning,
Landscaping History, Green Evaluation, Urban green space,
Landscape theory, Environmental education, Nature experi-
ence, Eco-tourism, Nature conservation, National Park. He has
also served Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture and
Japan Geoscience Union.
ORCID
Huixin Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0083-8316
Shixian Luo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3745-7023
Katsunori Furuya http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1331-6808
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Appendix 1. Compilation of related literature
References Study site Number of samples Specific methods and procedures
Fefer et al. (2020) National Wildlife Refuge 24 semi-structured interviews and 17 VEP
interviews.
Semi-structured interviews and the VEP method
Sugimoto (2018) Urban Park 21 student volunteers Visitor photography logs and GIS
Bapiri et al. (2021) Cultural heritage site 20 volunteer tourists in VEP VEP method, main interview, and content analysis
Sugimoto (2013) Urban Park 12 student volunteers visitor photography logs and GIS
Dorwart et al. (2009) National Park 33 tourists VEP method and post trip interviews
Heyman (2012) Urban forest 30 student volunteers in April and 32
student volunteers in September
VEP method and analyses of photo content
Loeffler (2004) Outdoor environment 14 student volunteers VEP method and photo elicitation-based interview
MacKay and
Couldwell (2004)
National historic site 129 tourists VEP method and photography logs
Oku and Fukamachi
(2006)
Suburban recreational
forest
81 general visitor groups VEP method and questionnaire survey
Hansen (2016) Marine national park 41 volunteers VEP method, photos taken by smartphones, photography
logs and an unstructured follow-up interview
Stedman et al.
(2004)
National Park 45 local residents VEP method and interview
Liu et al. (2021) Outdoor environment in a
nursing home
23 elderly people VEP method, photos taken by smartphones along the pre-
set route
Sun et al. (2019) Wetland Park 32 student volunteers VEP method and SolVES mapping tool
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