Integrating off-site visitor education into landscape conservation and management: An examination of timing of educational messaging and compliance with low-impact hiking recommendations

The protection of landscapes from environmentally-damaging recreational impacts requires planning and design for proactive visitor education. We examined how the timing of off-site educational messaging influences individuals' compliance with, knowledge of, and attitudes towards two low-impact recreation behavioral recommendations (i.e., hiking on muddy or wet trail sections and walking on trail steps rather than around them) using a laboratory-based experiment. The educational message used in the experiment consisted of a video and short summary statements about low-impact hiking recommendations. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups: 1) viewing the message at least 24 h before the experiment; 2) viewing the message immediately before the experiment; or 3) not viewing the message at all (control). We assessed participants' hiking intentions by asking them to draw their intended hiking routes on a large LCD display depicting short sections of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee. Participants' intended routes were coded as either complying or not complying with the low-impact hiking recommendations. For participants who received the educational message, knowledge about and attitudes toward low-impact hiking were measured twice, immediately after viewing the message and at the end of the experiment. Our analyses revealed the educational message significantly improved participants' knowledge levels, attitudes, and intentions to comply with low-impact hiking recommendations. The timing of when the educational message was viewed/read by participants, however, did not influence their knowledge levels, attitudes, or intentions to comply. These findings suggest low-impact recreation behavior can be influenced through educational messages delivered before outdoor recreationists begin their trips.