Visitor satisfaction at Kakum National Park in Ghana

Protected areas have a strong appeal to visitors seeking experience in natural settings. In satisfying visitors, managers need to understand their expectations and the experiences as a basis for providing a satisfactory experience for them. These experiences can be influenced by some aspects of protected areas such as the presence of charismatic species, and the attractiveness of the landscape, which constitutes the attributes that generally affect the satisfaction of visitors. Despite the growing importance of protected area tourism, little attention has been paid to visitor satisfaction based on their evaluation of the quality of the attributes. This paper aims at investigating visitors’ perception of the quality of the attributes of a protected area in order to identify those attributes that contribute to visitor satisfaction. Using Kakum National Park in Ghana, a survey was administered to 191 visitors to indicate their perceptions on the importance and performance of the attributes, using systematic sampling, over a period of four weeks. The study revealed that culture and natural setting were found to be important to the visitors. However, a generally poor performance of a range of attributes undermines visitor satisfaction. Management interventions in improving cultural and natural experiences are critical to visitor satisfaction.