Who Visits A Nature Based Urban Attraction And Why? An Exploratory Study Of The Motivations To Visit The Pretoria Zoo In South Africa

Abstract

Urban tourism is one of the most dynamic types of tourism. The demand for travel to specifically cities, has greatly increased over the last few decades. Although much of the world’s tourism activity occurs in urban areas of major cities such as Paris and London, it is only recently that urban tourism has been identified as a significant sector of tourism worthy of academic attention. The purpose of this study was to identify if the reason for the existence of zoological gardens (zoos) is the main reason why people visit them. The Pretoria zoo is the largest and only national zoo in South Africa and is classified as an urban attraction. The zoo is part of the National Research Foundation (NRF) which is a public entity that fosters research within the country. As part of the NRF, the NZG’s focus is on the promotion of research; in addition to that the other main functions of the NZG include conservation and education. It is therefore important to establish whether tourist see zoos as inter-alia centres of conservation, education or is there another reason why tourist visit zoos. In order to determine the answer(s) to this question, a self-administered questionnaire was used as a research instrument. The questionnaire was distributed at the research site. A total of 400 completed responses were received and were included in the statistical analysis.