Visitors can affect and reduce the welfare of nonhuman animals. The Belo Horizonte Zoo, Brazil, had a group of greater rheas intended for reintroduction to the wild. Because this group received public visitation, evaluating its effect on the birds' behavior and welfare was important. The study conducted 60 hr of behavioral observations: 30 with, and 30 without, visitors in front of the birds' e...

This study investigated the effect of different scientific inquiry activities on visitors' understanding of the science underlying an interactive exhibit. The exhibit, "colored shadows," creates a pattern of colored shadows on a white wall, due to a person's body blocking the light from colored lamps. The subjects were 392 museum visitors, aged 7 to adult. They were individually guided through ...

BACKGROUND Multimodal interventions aim to improve health care workers' adherence to hand hygiene guidelines. Visitors are not primarily targeted, but may spread epidemic infections. Effective interventions that improve the adherence of visitors to hand hygiene guidelines are needed to prevent the transmission of epidemic infections to or from health care environments. METHODS An electronic m...

Festivals have been proliferating worldwide, and local authorities are either supporting, or organizing small, local festivals to enhance the attractiveness of the destination for non-local visitors. Festivals are also very effective tools for developing destination image, revitalizing economy, culture, traditions, building civic pride, raising funds for special, civic or charitable projects, a...

This report describes and discusses the findings from a field study that was conducted at the Vancouver Aquarium to investigate how visitors explore and experience large horizontal multi-touch tables as part of public exhibition spaces. The study investigated visitors’ use of two different tabletop applications—the Collection Viewer and the Arctic Choices table—that are part of the Canada’s Arc...

Quick Response (QR) code technologies offer potentially outstanding opportunities to transform public experience in museum-like spaces. However, although QR codes are a cost-effective way of delivering digital information in these spaces, there is as yet little information on the resulting effects on visitor engagement. We conducted two different controlled experiments in order to examine the e...

This study focuses on the carrying capacity estimation for Darkesh forest in Northeast Iran. Four factors were used for estimating the carrying capacity including tourist flows, size of the area, optimum space available for each tourist, and visiting time. Results showed that the physical carrying capacity was 2727 ha or 165 visitors/day, while the real carrying capacity was 2719 ha or 132 visi...

Theoretical analysis highlights the complexity of the relationship between education and entertainment in educational leisure settings and indicates the need for research in this area. This paper contributes to developing an understanding of the connections between, and compatibility of, education and entertainment, from the perspective of visitors to educational leisure settings. Questionnaire...

This report explores the differences in farm and farmer attributes, marketing and management practices, and economic performance among agritourism farms in Missouri receiving different numbers of visitors 1. This is the second report derived from the Missouri Agritourism Survey, a study conducted in 2009 by the Missouri Department of Agriculture and the University of Missouri Department of Park...

Wikipedia continues to provide the community with a vast collection of articles that cover almost all the different areas of knowledge. The on-line encyclopedia is built upon altruistic contributions from individuals and organizations, which constitutes an absolutely new approach in knowledge compilation and distribution. The progression of Wikipedia to a mass phenomenon has promoted several in...