People’s preferences for Alpine forest landscapes: Results of an internet-based survey

During the last century, European mountain landscapes have been subject to change due to depopulation and abandonment of the traditional human activities. The relationship between people and nature giving rise to the diffusion of aesthetic attitudes towards natural and cultural landscapes. The article analyses the people’s preferences for different Alpine forest landscapes in order to define a territorial marketing strategy able to consider the preferences of potential visitors. People’s preferences were collected through an internet-based online survey. A sample of 500 respondents assessed the features of landscape from an aesthetic point of view and evaluated five Alpine forest landscapes images through a pairwise comparison. The results show that people prefer more natural landscapes – without human infrastructures – characterized by forests and water bodies.