Explaining demographic-destination preferences for cultural ecosystem services: A set-theoretic configurational analysis

Many fundamental studies on cultural ecosystem services (CES) and CES destination preferences still tend to focus on detecting the respective importance of destination attributes. However, this perspective needs more efforts on the fact that visitors always select a CES destination through a configurational consideration of its ecological and environmental attributes. Based on this consideration, 22 urban green spaces in Nagoya, Japan were studied, and a configurational model was developed by applying complexity theory and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), to explain and better understand the causal patterns of CES quality and availability influencing demographic-CES destination preferences. The results showed that similar preference modes occurred between young adults and males who were very concerned about the time spent on transportation, and between older people and females who had multiple considerations regarding both CES quality and availability. Such findings on the demographic-destination preferences for CES could not only provide configurational insight into the relationships between destination attributes and travel preferences, but also help CES organizations develop multi-factor cooperative management for better CES provision.