The Impact of Aesthetic Expectations and Aesthetic Experiential Qualities on Tourist Satisfaction: A Case Study of the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is a very interesting paper concerning important issue: aesthetic vaues of landscape and tourists expectations and behaviour. The problem of protection / shaping of visual environment in public spaces is really crucial. Although the paper concerns aesthetic valuaes of natural forest landscapes and reception of these values by tourists. It is indicated to take into account the rule (principle), that natural landscapes (including forest) are aesthetic and harmonious by its nature (= the rule of harmony of natural landscapes) - in contradiction to landscapes shaped by man activity which may or may not be harmonious. So, natural landscapes are aestetic and harmonious, but how they are percepted by tourists ? - and this issue is investigated by the Authors of the paper.

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between aesthetic expectations of tourists, experimental qualities AND tourists satisfaction relateted with their behaviour and choices to undertake the journey to specific destination place. The research was conducted among tourists in natural forest landscape (the Forest National Park in China), so the results were easy to forsee. However, the most valuable thing, in my opinion, it was to propose and test a quite innovative (and interesting) methodical approach - and it is THE MAIN VALUE of the paper. The Athors proposed and tested the Aesthetic Expectation Confirmation Model (AECM) and conduct investigations in "sectors": natural environment, humanistic environment and economic environment. It will be very intersting to use this research methodical approach in relation to cultural landscapes and their aesthetic values in evaluation/perception by tourists (useful for planning cultural landscapes - to make them more attractive for tourists; natural landscapes are pefect, as regards harmony / aestetic values, by their nature.

Detailed comments:

Ad INTRODUCTION - there is a little mess in this subsection. I suggest to bring more order in the text, especially to formulate the aim of studies directly in the end of this subsection. There are also some fragmanets which are to be rather in RESULTS or DISCUSSION (e.g. the last paragraph).

Ad 2. CONCEPTUAL MODEL and HYPOTHESIS... I am not sure, it is proper to formulate so many hypothesis (results confirm them mainly  in the synthetic way, not so detaily). ? Perhaps subsection 2 and 3 should be consolidated into one subchapter, as 2. STUDY AREA AND METHODS? Too many subsections and no Figure with methodical scheme (the framework scheme).

Table 1 - should be corrected to be more clear (better edition)

There is no subsection CONCLUSIONS. I suggest to add it.

Line 507 - remove "," after "... Implication..."

Line 508 - change into capital letter at the beginning: "... Contributions..."

The article is interesting for readers, especially as regards methodical approach; results are realtively easy to forsee.

English is OK.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for offering us an opportunity to enhance the quality of our manuscript (ID: forests-2822846). Your professional insights and meticulous review are invaluable in our research work. We have carefully considered each of your suggestions and have accordingly made revisions to our manuscript. We hope the revised manuscript has now met the publication standard of your journal. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been  highlighted in red colour.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The introduction is very comprehensive. I will try to move some of the information to the discussion, because the discussion is poor. 

The rest of the work is good. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for offering us an opportunity to enhance the quality of our manuscript (ID: forests-2822846). Your professional insights and meticulous review are invaluable in our research work. We have carefully considered each of your suggestions and have accordingly made revisions to our manuscript. We hope the revised manuscript has now met the publication standard of your journal. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been  highlighted in red colour.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

the ecological crisis is also an aesthetic crisis. This is why environmental aesthetics is becoming increasingly important.

The authors examine the aesthetic expectations of tourists and their satisfaction in a national park in China. Aesthetic expectations have so far been little studied; the work therefore contributes to an important question.

In the philosophical tradition (for example Kant), aesthetics has no expectation, it is a disinterested pleasure. It should therefore be made clear which concept of aesthetics is being used here in a more technical sense. Aesthetics is more than the purely visual dimension of perception. Aesthetics encompasses perception and evaluation through all the senses. The article focuses on the visual side, which should be made clear at the beginning.

Some small details should be clarified

page 3, line 123

“humanistic aspects”

Do you mean “anthropogenic, human, technical”?

When describing the study area, it would be interesting to know how many visitors the park has per year. Can you add such a figure?

Page 16, line 509

this study does not really contribute to the theoretical landscape.

It is an important study in the quantitative method to investigate the relationship between expectation and satisfaction. However, a landscape theory or forest aesthetics would have to open up a humanistic approach to aesthetics.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for offering us an opportunity to enhance the quality of our manuscript (ID: forests-2822846). Your professional insights and meticulous review are invaluable in our research work. We have carefully considered each of your suggestions and have accordingly made revisions to our manuscript. We hope the revised manuscript has now met the publication standard of your journal. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been  highlighted in red colour.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Introduction and theoretical setting:

The research hypothesis is well stated and argued, but the text is characterized by numerous repetitions - I recommend to the authors a general editing to remove redundant text.

The research is largely focused on theoretical discussion, which means a very correct handling of terminology. The authors use the terms forest recreation (without any relation to it in the text), aesthetic tourism, and nature-based tourism, but with a rather loose interpretation. I recommend that the authors pay specific attention to nature-based tourism - what they understand by this concept and how they interpret it here. This seems to be a very important prerequisite for the correct interpretation of their results aimed at specific tourist experiences in the process of nature-based tourism. On the same basis, I would ask a question - what do the authors understand by aesthetic tourism?

Fig.1 - I think it is correct to indicate here an original source of the model, or that this is an author's interpretation of the model of previous researchers.

To the survey construction methodology:

How are the authors sure that the tourist has visited an object of the service infrastructure? If he did not visit it and the answers to the AEQ questions remained negative, but the tourist gave his final assessment of a satisfactory experience, does this not distort the results?

What are these interviews (lines 482 and 499) that were conducted to verify the results obtained? How are they constructed, what do they contain, how are the respondents selected?

Aesthetic experiences in nature-based tourism are strongly influenced by weather (meteorological weather, seasonality), the involvement of tour guides (who direct the visitors' attention) or the size of the tourist group and general tourist flow (which can prevent the visitor from seeing the site from the most suitable location). How are these subjective factors taken into account in the research? There are many factors that can affect the final results, and on this basis, I recommend that the authors take a more self-critical approach when discussing the results achieved.

The layout of tables 4, 5 and 6 can be optimized.

The quality of fig. 4 can be optimized.

Discussion of results and contributions:

The research is largely focused on theoretical discussion. But, as presented here, it has nothing to do with forest recreation - the term is not commented on in the introductory part, and the construction of the questions to the respondents also does not make a direct connection with forest recreation. In this sense, the inclusion of the term "forest recreation" among the keywords, in the abstract and the statements in item 6.1. (Contributions commenting on the connection with forest recreation) - I categorically define it as incorrect.

Some claims are baseless and misleading – for example, line 542, states that this manuscript offers a roadmap, which is not true. In reality, the study only confirms the importance of service within the scope of the tourist destination on the overall satisfaction of the tourist experience, which can be taken into account by the park management system, but lacks any specific recommendations in this direction.

The research undoubtedly gives its perspective on the subject under consideration, and the results deserve to gain publicity, but I recommend to the authors that this is done with the correct use of terms and by sticking only to what was done during the research in all its limiting conditions and factors.

I believe that revision is an important aspect and I wish the team a productive work ahead.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for offering us an opportunity to enhance the quality of our manuscript (ID: forests-2822846). Your professional insights and meticulous review are invaluable in our research work. We have carefully considered each of your suggestions and have accordingly made revisions to our manuscript. We hope the revised manuscript has now met the publication standard of your journal. In the revised manuscript, all the changes have been  highlighted in red colour.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

while your article has improved, I must emphasize that the term 'forest recreation' in the abstract and keywords is misleading. Your comment on forest recreation as a term in the introduction is not sufficient. You are conducting research in a forest environment, but your focus is on the "movement of information" before, during, and after tourists visit. Your research does not extensively analyze forest recreation and its associated activities. Therefore, I recommend that the term "forest recreation" be removed from the keywords.

Wishing success to your publication!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you once again for your feedback on the manuscript (ID: forests-2822846). Your professional insights and thorough review have been crucial in improving the quality of our manuscript. We have carefully considered your suggestions and have decided to remove "Forest Recreation" from the keywords. We hope that the revised manuscript now meets the publication standards of your journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf