Visitors' attitudes towards bicycle use in the Teide National Park

Abstract

Few studies have examined visitor preferences with regard to public bike-sharing inside national parks. Here, we present a case study of the Teide National Park (TNP), the most visited national park in Spain. The TNP is a clear example of a natural site suffering the effects of mass tourism, largely due to the fact that 70% of visitors access the TNP by car. This puts the park's sustainability under considerable pressure, may well affect visitor enjoyment, and highlights the need to implement alternative transportation systems. The main aim of this paper is to assess the attitudes of visitors to the TNP towards the implementation of a public bike-sharing system. To do so, we combine information on revealed and stated preferences and estimate ordered logit models to establish the determinants of the propensity to choose the bicycle to move around the park. Our findings suggest that the bicycle has potential as a means of transport in this setting. The results have implications for the design of mobility management measures aiming to increase visit quality and reduce the negative externalities associated with mobility patterns in national parks.