The practicality of purism scales when planning tourism in wilderness

ABSTRACT Wilderness is an important resource for tourism but it is very sensitive to overuse. In order to maintain their attraction, wilderness destinations need to be planned and managed carefully. For that purpose, several models have been developed, one of which is the so-called purism scale model. It is used for segmenting visitors based on their preferences and attitudes towards wilderness destinations. Visitors are asked to rank particular items relating to the management and qualities of wilderness areas along a purism scale and are given a score describing their attitudes. A few studies have used quantitative methods with the aim of improving purism scales. The novelty of this study is adopting a qualitative approach to explore the practicality of purism scales for managing wilderness destinations. It is based on semi-structured interviews in a wilderness area in Iceland, Landmannalaugar, with the aim of investigating the reasoning that visitors have for ranking purism items. The results highlight which purism items are useful to divide visitors into different segments and which ones are not. The study identifies several aspects which question the practicality of purism scales, including differences in the perceived meaning of items and the perspective adopted when ranking the items.