Into the wild? Preferences of frequent mountain and forest recreationists for accessibility and mobility

doi:10.3832/ifor4802-018

Into the wild? Preferences of frequent mountain and forest recreationists for accessibility and mobility

Giacomo Pagot⁽¹⁾ , Gianluca Grilli⁽²⁾, Paola Gatto⁽¹⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 18, Issue 3, Pages 128-137 (2025)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor4802-018
Published: May 24, 2025 - Copyright © 2025 SISEF

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Outdoor recreation in forests and mountains is growing in popularity globally, especially in industrialised countries. Outdoor recreation has benefits both for practitioners’ body and mental health, and local communities for revenue opportunities. This study focuses on frequent outdoor recreationists, who are members of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI), by exploring: (i) the infrastructure preferences for accessing and moving in mountain and forest areas; (ii) possible associations between socio-demographic characteristics and frequency of mountain and forest visits; and (iii) possible relationships between sociodemographic characteristics and the frequency of use of mountain bike and e-bike. Ordinal logistic regression models were used to achieve the second and third objectives. Results show that CAI recreationists tend to prefer limited or no services for accessing mountains. They rarely use e-bikes and mountain bikes and their frequency of visits to mountains are influenced by educational attainment and occupation. Results can provide valuable information for land management decision processes regarding accessibility infrastructures. Future research should address more occasional mountain and forest recreationists and local communities.

Keywords

Outdoor Recreation, Mountains, Forests, Hikers’ Preferences, Infrastructure, Accessibility, Mountain Bike, E-bike

Authors’ address

(1)

0000-0003-3516-0971
0000-0003-2951-5692
TESAF Department, University of Padova, v.le dell’Università 16, I-35020 Legnaro, PD (Italy)

(2)

0000-0002-2082-4475
University of Trento, Economics and Management Department, v. Inama 5, I-38122 Trento (Italy)

Corresponding author

Giacomo Pagot
giacomo.pagot@unipd.it

Citation

Pagot G, Grilli G, Gatto P (2025). Into the wild? Preferences of frequent mountain and forest recreationists for accessibility and mobility. iForest 18: 128-137. - doi: 10.3832/ifor4802-018

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: Jan 23, 2025
Accepted: Mar 02, 2025

First online: May 24, 2025
Publication Date: Jun 30, 2025
Publication Time: 2.77 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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