How Do People Experience the Alps? Attitudes and Perceptions in Two Protected Areas in Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I find the question of how people experience the Alps interesting. Especially with the questionnaire I find the interpretation of the results not easy, because the categories are quite broad. It is interesting, for example, that more people come for sports than for nature or classify their visit in this category. But how can the differences be explained? In Adamello almost half of the respondents tick all the categories, in Gran Paradiso only a quarter. Where the respondents in Adamello just lazy? Could there be interviewer effects? Based on the visitor structure, one gets the impression that Grand Paradiso is an attraction with a wider range, while Adamello is visited more locally? What about international visitors?

I would design the Likert scale as a horizontal stacked-bar chart. This way it will be much easier to understand.

Some of the wording seems a bit unusual to me, but since I'm not a native speaker myself, I can't competently judge whether they are errors.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I am writing to express our gratitude for the time and effort you have dedicated to reviewing our paper, “How do people experience the Alps? Attitudes and perceptions in two protected areas in Italy”. We have taken your feedback into consideration and have made the necessary revisions to the manuscript. Your insights have helped us to better articulate our findings and have strengthened the overall impact of our work. Moreover, we have added further analyses and slightly changed some details, we have used the “Track changes” tool, so that it will be easy for you to see the changes done. Here attached you will find a Word file, in which we have replied (in red) to your comments point by point.

Once again, thank you for your contributions. Please let us know if you have any further comments or questions.

Best regards,

Noemi Rota

Co-authors: Claudia Canedoli, Oscar Luigi Azzimonti, Emilio Padoa-Schioppa

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic, visitors and stakeholders perception of protected areas, is apealing an important. The authors had the opportunity to compare the attitudes of visitors and managers of two protected areas (PAs) in Italy. They obtained a large amount of data through a questionnaire survey. However, there are many drawbacks.

 The introduction is very general, it mentions a broad topic spectrum: ecosystem services, tourism in the Alps, biodiversity, the pandemic crisis, sustainable tourism and users´ and managers´attidudtes. It is better to focus on a limited number of topics in the article. Hence, the content of the chapter should be reduced and the aims more clearly formulated (in several points).

In the materials and methods, the description of the studied areas is too long. It is appropriate to select only essential characteristics, differences and similarities of both PAs. By the way, why were these two territories chosen?

The long description "Interviews and questionnaires" (L 146-188) is more suitable to be supplemented with specific ranges of questions for interviews and questionnaire surveys, for example in the form of an appendix. A description of the method of data evaluation is completely missing. The abstract mentions data analysis, but the data was not actually analyzed in any way. The results are presented vaguely and it is clear that only some ranges of questions were selected. Too much space is devoted to the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic. The text is also lengthened by literal quotations, which should be completely omitted from the text. Both studied areas are presented separately without comparison. The results are not structured according to the monitored topic: tourism, ecosystem services, stakeholders, etc. It is appropriate to present specific results and comparisons in the form of tables and graphs.

The sub-chapter “Questionnaires” contains basic statistical information and should be included at the beginning of the chapter Results. Subchapters 3.2.1 to 3.2.5 sometimes contain text that refers to the description of the methodology (e.g. L 378-387, L 410-411, L 422-423).

Why are both PAs always presented in 2 tables (Tab. 2, 3 and Tab. 4, 5)? The results of both territories could be compared in one table.

Figures 6, 7, 8 lack a detailed legend. What exactly does "No" and "Yes" mean in this case? A large space is devoted to the COVID-19 epidemic, which is not the main topic of the article.

The issue of changes of anticipation in some aspects after COVID-19 is promising topic that could be dealt with in a separate article.

The too discussion is divided into subsections that do not correspond to the results. A comparison with other studies from other territories worldwide is lacking. Generalization of conclusions for European mountainous PAs is also lacking.

The conclusions should be expressed much more precisely and explicitly with regard to the stated objectives.

The entire text of the manuscript gives the impression of the final report of the complex project, which focused on a larger number of topics. However, the article should focus only on a narrowly focused topic with clearly defined goals. The text should have a clear consistent structure, analyzed data, clearly presented results, and explicitly formulated conclusions with respect to the set objectives.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for taking the time to review our paper, “How do people experience the Alps? Attitudes and perceptions in two protected areas in Italy”, and for providing us with your valuable feedback. We appreciate your attention to detail and the constructive criticism that you have provided. Your comments have greatly helped us to improve the quality of our paper. We have taken your suggestions into consideration and have made the necessary revisions. We believe that the paper is now stronger and more comprehensive as a result of your feedback. We have made some changes also in the data elaboration and the supplementary materials were implemented with questionnaires and interviews examples. We used the “Track Changes” tool, so that it will be easier for you to see the changes we have done. Here attached you will find a Word document where you can find the replies (in red) to each comment you have done.

Once again, thank you for your contributions. Your expertise and attention to detail have been greatly appreciated.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to address your comments or concerns.

Thank you again for your time and effort.

Sincerely,

Noemi Rota, Claudia Canedoli, Oscar Luigi Azzimonti, Emilio Padoa-Schioppa

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The main shortcomings of the first version were insufficiently analyzed data, a large number of solved aspects and excessive length (amount of text). Unfortunately, many shortcomings remain. The manuscript still seems to be final report of the complex project (focused on a large number of topics) then scientific article. I am afraid, my last recommendations were not followed.

There are the main drawbacks:

Users’ attitudes, similarities in the managers’ perception and categories of users are defined as the main aim of this research. Nevertheless, only little attention is paid to them including the statistical analysis.

There are many redundant topics that are not mentioned in the aims. Much more, some parameters were collected but were not tested: tourism trip length, duration of the stay, frequency of visits, activity type, stakeholders’ category, COVID-19 pandemic. Some of them could be omitted.

One of the main aim was to compare the results in two PAs, not describe them separately. This should be reflected in the results section and in discussion.

I appeal to the authors to structure the discussion so that it corresponds to the aims and results and express conclusions more precisely and explicitly with regard to the stated aims. Major conclusions should be formulated in bullet points.

By omitting redundant and repetitive information, the text can be cut in half.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I am writing on behalf of the authors of the scientific paper entitled “How do people experience the Alps? Attitudes and perceptions in two protected areas in Italy”. We would like to express our sincerest gratitude for taking the time to review our manuscript. Your insightful comments and suggestions have been of great value in helping us to improve the quality of the work.

We are pleased to inform you that we have carefully considered all your feedback and made the necessary revisions to the manuscript. We have followed your requests, and we believe that the revised version now more accurately reflects the significance and contribution of the research. Here attached you can find a Word document in which we replied point by point to each comment, also regarding the first round of reviews. The main corrections were a significant reduction of the text length (more than 8000 characters and 1300 words) and the inclusion of new statistical analyses, such as the binary logistic regression for exploring the topic of mass tourism.

Once again, we would like to express our gratitude for your time and expertise. Your review has played a critical role in the refinement of our work, and we are confident that it will make a valuable contribution to the field.

If you have any further comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Best regards,

Noemi Rota

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the authors for the additions and modifications of the manuscript that led to its improvement. Although several details remain to be discussed, I consider the article in this form suitable for publication.