Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting study on the driving factors and characteristics of people choosing to visit a protected area in Spain. I find the connection to the focus of the journal “Land” a bit weak, as the paper is not actually about conservation or the environment as such and the paper would be better suited to a journal focusing on tourism. However I understand that the Special Issue topic does include recreation opportunities in protected areas, in which case I think the paper could be strengthened by considering the implications of the results for protected area conservation – we now know who is more likely to visit, but what does this mean for the area?

 

The structure of the paper is a little unusual – methodology then results then more methodology then more results. I would try to restructure it so all results are presented together. I can so no reason why you couldn’t introduce the methodology of the Chow test before presenting the results of the logit model.

 

The title could be more concise – “the probability of making a tourist visit to..” I had to read a few times to understand what was meant. “Conditioning factors” is also not an intuitive phrasing. Maybe it could be something like “Probability estimation of and factors influencing tourism in protected natural spaces: a case study in the Monfragüe Biosphere Reserve of Spain”. Although in the abstract you don’t mention estimation of probability, so the focus seems to be just on identifying the factors.

 

The history of protected areas on p3 is interesting but I’m not sure it’s needed in such detail in this paper. A definition of protected areas, their use in ecotourism, and why they are increasing is probably all that is needed here.

 

P6 a map of the Extremadura region is needed

 

Line 262-264 there is no explanation of why ecotourism may disappoint tourists or why this is important

 

Line 296 presumably the decrease in visits between 2019 and 2020 is due to the pandemic – why have you not mentioned this?

 

Line 311 I wouldn’t describe the dependent variable as a dummy variable – it’s true a dummy variable is usually 0 or 1, but a dummy variable is used as an independent variable to add another dimension to the equation. I would just describe it as a binary variable.

 

P7 Why did you choose a logit model? You mention it is often used in tourism research, but what alternatives did you consider and is it used elsewhere? What makes it a good model for this purpose? (For the record I agree it is probably appropriate, you just haven’t adequately explained why). Why did you choose the variables you did? Why did you choose 35 and 55 as the cut off points for age?

 

Line 370 Is it possible that there is a gender and age bias because the person completing the survey is more likely to be the mother in a family group and the female in a couple? Although I don’t think this would effect your results because even if there is a response bias, it would apply to all respondents, not just the ones who visiting Monfragüe.

 

The discussion section could explore more why it is important to understand the characteristics of people who choose to visit Monfragüe over other areas in Extremadura. How can this information be used to help conservation for example?

 

Editorial

Line 108 “From this year…” which year?

Line 280/286 what is an SPA and an SCA?

Line 487 what is MICE tourism?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this interesting study. I give my recommendations:

The manuscript has no theory related to the investigated topic: factors that influence the decision to visit ecotourism. Only ecotourism is mentioned because of its importance. But a theoretical framework related to the findings found is not addressed.

I do not agree with the Logit model applied for this study because, being binary, it reduces the variables, causing a bias in the research in this case. For example, in the case of the variable “travel company” that has several subgroups, the authors reduce it to only two subgroups, where “1” is a couple or family and “0” is others. I believe that one thing is to travel as a couple and another to travel as a family. That is, the other subgroups have been grouped into a single variable called "0" to run the model. The same happens with the age that only exists less than 35 years “1”. That is, other subgroups or age groups are not taken into account.

The origin of the questionnaire and its parts is not addressed in the Methodology.

I do not find a scientific cut to the questionnaire, so it would have been important to have the detail of the origin. That is, does it come from scientific authors and writings so that their results contribute to science? In other words, they are scientists before being part of the Tourist Observatory.

The results are a statistical strength of the authors, but since they are biased, I don't see them contributing to the scientific literature. A segmentation is commented on in the results, but with much more reason the Probit method biases the results to be segmented. There is also no literature on previous findings of ecotourism demand segmentation.

The Discussion is not related to previous studies because they are not found in the Literature of this manuscript. In other words, if there is no related literature, there will be no scientific discussion either.

The theoretical contribution in the final section of Discussion and Conclusions is not clear.

For the reasons stated, especially because a literature of previous findings related to the findings found is not addressed, the results are biased in the sociodemographic variables, the design of the questionnaire is not justified, there is no scientific discussion, the theoretical contribution is not Sure. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this manuscript for publication in an “A” type journal like the prestigious Journal Land.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

 

First of all, I am glad to have the opportunity to read their article on “An estimation of the probability of making a tourist visit to a protected natural space and the identification of its conditioning factors: an application to the Monfragüe Biosphere Reserve of Spain”, that I have read with great interest.

 

I would like to say that the topic of this paper is relevant, but from my humble point of view, the paper has weak points, which should be significantly improved.

 

In spite of these problems, and considering the interest of the subject, I would like to suggest that the authors revise their paper considering the comments offered below. In my view, the revised version should undergo a new assessment process.

 

Now, I would like to make some comments and suggestions that should always be understood in a positive way and considering that the different observations constitute different avenues that may allow improving this interesting research and facilitate its publication and impact in the subsequent specialized literature. With this initial caveat in mind, I would like to make the following observations and recommendations to the authors for their reflection and introduction of the changes they consider appropriate:

 

1) The title is too long with more than 30 words. My recommendation is to cut it in half.

 

2) In the Introduction section, the authors could collect the possible research questions.

 

3) In the literature review, the authors should explain some aspects of the general context of tourists who visit this type of areas in Spain with the intention of being able to better understand the variables that influence the behavior of the tourist in other cases. In this sense, I recommend that the authors include the following current reference:

 

Sustainable Development and Consumer Behavior in Rural Tourism-The Importance of Image and Loyalty for Host Communities: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094763

 

4) In the discussion, limitations, and future lines of research section the authors should explain better their contributions in the academic and managerial fields clearly indicated.

For all these reasons, I think this article needs a major revision, but I hope the authors will be able to do it correctly.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

Your article is really good. I just don't see the need to separate the research methodology and present the results into two parts. There should be a chapter research methodology and e.g. two sub-chapters and a chapter research results with two sub-chapters.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has improved substantially.

The theory has been added and the Discussion has been improved and the application of the Logit Method has been explained.

What I have not found is a detail of this in the Methodology:

Where does the questionnaire originate from? How were the questions formulated? Were they adapted from a scientific study? Please add any details of the questionnaire about its origin and measurement of the questions in order to demonstrate that it is "scientific".

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

First of all, I am glad to have the opportunity to read again this paper. And I would like to say that paper has improved its quality remarkably with all the proposed changes. Therefore, I consider that the paper can be published.

Author Response

Thank you for your kind words

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript _{has improved, its publication is recommended}

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.