Mountain hikes and Levada Practitioner’s motivation and experience – Characterization

Abstract The Madeira Island provides excellent conditions for tourism due to its variety of scenarios, weather conditions and topography, and it becomes fundamental to think about the tourists’ experience. This study aims to understand the practitioner’s motivations on mountains hikes and Levada, and how visitors live the experience. We applied a ‘QEFENRAM’ survey (Florido, 2010) with 3 main dimensions related to the practitioner’s experience while performing mountain hikes or Levadas: 1. Practitioner’s motivations; 2. Practitioner’s predisposition; 3. Practitioner’s experience. We obtained 293 replies immediately after the activities’ conclusion (males: 124; female: 169) with the following results: a) Levels of motivation: 52.6% of the participants revelled intrinsic motivation, while 27.1% showed extrinsic motivation; b) Safety: 79.2% reported to be aware of safety measures and to have the necessary competence to perform the activity; c) Practitioners experience: 76.3% reported to be highly focused on their activity and felt to be part of the scenario itself. 10.9% referred to a feeling that, somehow, they were interfering, negatively, with the environment. These findings can help to characterize the practitioner’s motivations and experience. Based on this information, we can discuss what to improve in the touristic scenarios to refine the experience in Levadas and mountain hikes.