Quantifying the relationship between visitor satisfaction and perceived accessibility to pedestrian spaces on festival days

Abstract

Many cities organize cultural festivals to promote their distinctiveness, boost the local economy, andenhance quality of life. However, urban spaces are packed with visitors on festival days, thus affecting accessibility to pedestrian spaces. This research examined visitor satisfaction with accessibility to pedest rian spaces during special events such as festivals. We particularly focusedonthe Hakata Dontaku festival, which is celebrated in Fukuoka, Japan. We studied three main elements that affect pedestrian satisfaction and perceived accessibility through walking, namely, safety, mobility, andamenities. We first analyzed previous studies and employed analytical hierarchy process to setup indicators for satisfaction measurement. Second, we determined visitor satisfaction through a survey questionnaire, which was conducted duringthe Hakata Dontaku festival. Third, we assessed the normality of the data set that was obtained from the questionnaire. Finally, we applied structural equation modeling. Results showed that theproposed model was a good fit, as indicated by the goodness of fit test, and the majority of indicators loaded significant values that supported their constructs. Satisfaction with amenities was found to be the most statistically significant variable that influences visitors' perceived accessibility during the Hakata Dontaku festival.

Keywords

Festival / Pedestrian / Accessibility / SEM / Walkability

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.