ABSTRACT
During the last century, European mountain landscapes have been subject to change due to depopulation and abandonment of the traditional human activities. The relationship between people and nature giving rise to the diffusion of aesthetic attitudes towards natural and cultural landscapes. The article analyses the people’s preferences for different Alpine forest landscapes in order to define a territorial marketing strategy able to consider the preferences of potential visitors. People’s preferences were collected through an internet-based online survey. A sample of 500 respondents assessed the features of landscape from an aesthetic point of view and evaluated five Alpine forest landscapes images through a pairwise comparison. The results show that people prefer more natural landscapes – without human infrastructures – characterized by forests and water bodies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The openness refers to the spatial configuration (a wide-view perspective) of the landscape represented in the picture.
2. The contrast is usually defined as the separation between the darkest and brightest areas of the image and it is considered the most important aspect of picture quality determining the perception of some details and the quality of the colors.
3. The brightness is related to the luminance of the image and influences the ability to distinguish objects.