Leisure Time Preference: The influence of gardening on garden visitation.

Abstract

Leisure preferences have been accounted for by a variety of variables, including gender, age and race; and by personality and other internal attributes. It could be hypothesised therefore that there would be a relationship between the different but associated leisure activities chosen by people. However to date, little attention has been paid in this area. This study uses a survey of residents in southern England (n = 397) to identify the preferences for visiting and revisiting a garden that is open to the public, (i.e. a visitor attraction), based on the respondent’s interest in gardening. Logistic regression was used first to identify which factors best predict the likelihood that the respondents would report that they had a visited a garden in the year of the study. It was then implemented to identify whether they sometimes like to revisit a garden. Three predictor (independent) variables were assessed in each case. First, whether the respondent has access to a garden space; secondly, their level of enthusiasm for gardening as a hobby and thirdly, how enjoyable they thought a visit to a garden attraction would be. The results show that both models were statistically significant, (chi square = 43.460, p = 0.000 with df = 6 and chi square = 36.488, p = 0.000 with df = 6). In respect of visiting a garden, the respondents’ enthusiasm for amateur gardening made a statistically significant contribution to the model. Respondents who quite liked gardening were slightly less likely to visit a garden than the enthusiastic gardeners. The strongest predictor of making a visit was perhaps unsurprisingly, those that thought a visit would be very enjoyable. This had an odds ratio of 2.01 indicating that these respondents were twice as likely to visit as those who thought a visit would be only quite enjoyable or quite or very unenjoyable. However, the result was not statistically significant, which suggests the presence of an omitted variable. The figure rose to six times more likely in respect of revisiting the same garden and this was statistically significant (p = 0.041). In light of these important results, further analysis was undertaken to establish the characteristics of the respondents based on the two key variables and why they might revisit. To conclude, an interest in gardening is not the most important factor in predicting garden visiting.