| Summary: | 碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 觀光事業學系碩士在職專班 === 99 === From one place to a specific one can be viewed as a complicated “movement”. This research defined the movement as wayfinding. This behavior is related to psychological recognition and decision making and is purposeful, directional and motivated. Individual gender, age, personality, educational background and working experience or travel experience would affect their wayfinding behavior and strategies. The three study purposes are to: 1. investigate individual sense of direction, spatial anxiety, and wayfinding strategies; 2. investigate how individual social-economic background and previous travelling experience influence their wayfinding strategies during traveling abroad; and 3. investigate how traveler’s sense of direction and spatial anxiety influence their wayfinding strategies.
Research participants were Taiwaness who visited Italy between January and April of 2011. The data were collected by researcher and his colleagues from Makoto Express International while leading the tour to Florence and Venice, Italy.
Of 540 research participants, male to female ratio is nearly equal to 1; educational background is above college; aged 32-33; at least 4 times experiences traveling abroad; 48% of them traveling abroad at least once a year; up to 70% has independent travel experiences; major destination is north-east Asia.
The research participants used route strategy more than survey strategy in wayfinding, felt their sense of direction is normal and felt anxiety sometimes. The study results showed that gender and traveling experience differences can significantly influence their sense of direction, spatial anxiety and wayfinding strategies. The results revealed that sense of direction had significant positive effects on survey strategy but has negative relationship with route wayfinding strategy. Spatial anxiety had negative effects on sense of direction. In addition, the degrees of female sense of direction and memorizing abilities of route are lower than male. In contrast, female’s degrees of spatial anxiety are higher than male. Also, individual who has better sense of direction also has lower spatial anxiety.
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