Introduction
Recently, not only horticultural therapy but also color therapy have been introduced in various ways to give people peace of mind in this rapidly changing era (Jung, 2006). Among the five human senses, sight receives the most information, accounting for more than 70% (Whang et al., 1997). Therefore, it is very important to understand how the visual image of plants is perceived by users as a visual environment (Lee and Bang, 1996). In particular, the perception of plant image is also known to have a close correlation with colors and emotions among the visual environment (Valdez and Mehrabian, 1994; Chong et al., 2004; Ou et al., 2004). Therefore, sensibility tends to change diversely according to individual and environmental changes (Kwon et al., 2009), and various colors of plants as a natural environment are very important for human emotions.
A restorative environment is an environment to which one’s eyes are drawn naturally without intentionally focusing on it, and the environment that contains many factors that can recover or restore attention consumed in daily life is a natural environment (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Herzog et al., 1997). The natural environment in an urban forest or daily life is fine, but to become a perceived restorative environment, the daily life environment must first have attributes of being away, extent, and scope, along with an attractive environment with attractive elements including aesthetically pleasing and interesting stimuli (Kaplan, 2001). Urban residents today have a stronger desire to return to nature, which is a restorative environment, to recover from stress experienced in everyday life (Herman, 1997). Rather than simply providing many natural environments, it is important to create a landscape that allows visitors to feel as if they are getting away or find attractive, and the richer the perceived restorative environment characteristics, the more direct effect there is on user attitudes (Moon, 2020). Therefore, the recent comprehensive land reclamation project that has been in progress until now for purposes such as international business, industry, tourism, and agricultural life (Seo et al., 2021), which is the reclaimed land of the Saemangeum area, can be used as the optimal restorative environment that offers the sense of being away, extent, scope, and fascination.
In the recently developed reclaimed land of the Saemangeum area, ecosystems and landscapes are damaged or destroyed on a large scale in the reclamation process, and thus to utilize the land of the Saemangeum reclaimed land, it is necessary to create a pleasant environment and landscape, a large-scale landscape forest to serve as the basic habitat for the ecosystem, environmental green spaces, and environmental control plants (Kim et al., 2017). However, the natural environment of reclaimed land is extremely difficult to form, connoting various causes that make it not suitable for plant growth (Kim, 2015). In particular, since sandy soils of reclaimed lands or beaches have higher wind erosion and angle of repose and lower safety than soils rich in clay (Jung et al., 2004), the soil environment in areas reclaimed from tidal flats is generally barren for plant growth (Cho, 2018).
However, the salt content of reclaimed land is known to be reduced by natural rain over time (Hanson et al., 1993). As of 2017, the Saemangeum reclaimed land is extremely barren in terms of soil fertility, but the salt content of the soil is decontaminated enough to grow most crops (Ryu et al., 2020). Thus, recently, the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of street trees, industrial complex/city/buffer/ecological restoration greens, and arboretum are rapidly spreading into large-scale areas in the Saemangeum reclaimed land (Kim et al., 2017).
Therefore, in this study, we planted lilies based on the report that the Saemangeum reclaimed land, which is constantly studied in terms of the applicability of field crops or horticultural plants at the National Institute of Crop Science test site in Gwanghwal-myeon, Gimje-si that is the Saemangeum reclaimed land area, has excellent economic feasibility and is optimal for cultivation of lilies (Jin et al., 2019). In addition, we intended to determine the perceived restorativeness of visitors in the flower landscape formed by applying color harmony such as adjacent colors, analogous colors, and complementary contrasts of reclaimed land on the National Institute of Crop Science test site in the Saemangeum reclaimed land using various plants such as cockscomb, silver grass, salvia, willow leaf verbena, cosmos, canna, and liatris, as well as the preference of overall landscape color, flowering plants, and lilies, satisfaction, and revisit intention.
Research Methods
Demographic background
This study was conducted to examine how the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape colors affect perceived restorativeness and revisit intention. We conducted a survey on 120 general participants and analyzed the responses of 112 participants except 8 inappropriate copies of the questionnaire. The average age of all respondents was 48.60 ± 12.99, and there were 49 male (43.8%) and 63 female respondents (56.2%). Most were in their 50s (39.3%), followed by over 60s (21.4%), 40s (17.0%), 20s (11.6%), and 30s (10.7%). Most were graduate school graduates (or students) (43.6%), followed by university graduates (or students) (36.4%) and high school graduates (20.0%). The average monthly household income was mostly under 2 million KRW a month (32.4%), followed by 2.01–3 million KRW (21.7%), 3.01–4 million KRW (19.8%), 5.01 million KRW or more (13.5%), and 4.01–5 million KRW (12.6%). As for occupation, most were company employees (34.3%), followed by professionals (25.2%), others (15.3%), agriculture, forestry and fishery (10.8%), housewives (6.3%), self-employed (5.4%), and students (2.7%) (Table 1).
Details of the survey
Saemangeum reclaimed landscape test site and survey method
We created a flower landscape from April to early July within the National Institute of Crop Science test site in Gwanghwal-myeon, Gimje-si, which is the Saemangeum reclaimed land area. Then, we surveyed and analyzed the landscape and lily color preference of Saemangeum reclaimed land visitors, as well as the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), satisfaction, and loyalty.
Saemangeum reclaimed landscape color preference
To survey the color preference in Saemangeum reclaimed land flower landscape, we conducted a survey on visitors who visited the site from July 13 to 20, after taking pictures of the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape by color on July 7, 2022 (Fig. 1). We provided total 8 colors of the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape selected and had the respondents rate their preferences on a 5-point Likert scale. To identify the reliability of measurement items, we analyzed the reliability using Cronbach α, which is an internal consistency method. In general, Cronbach α of 0.8 or higher indicates high reliability, and 0.6 or higher indicates minimum acceptable reliability (Lee, 2017). In this study, Cronbach α of the color preference in Saemangeum reclaimed landscape was .820.
Importance and color preference in lilies of the Saemangeum reclaimed land according to the morphological characteristics
We used 5 elements (flower size, fragrance, color, shape, flowering direction) to investigate the importance according to the morphological characteristics of lilies planted in the Saemangeum reclaimed land. We took pictures of the lilies by color and provided total 6 colors selected in the questionnaire for the participants to respond (Fig. 2). They were to rate the importance and preference on a 5-point Likert scale. In this study, the Cronbach’s α of importance and color preference according to the characteristics of the lilies in the Saemangeum reclaimed land was .743 and .733, respectively.
Korean version of the perceived restorativeness Scale (PRS)
The Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) was used to measure the level of restorativeness perceived by developing 4 subfactors of ‘being away’, ‘extent’, ‘fascination’, and ‘compatibility’ with total 16 items of the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) by Kaplan and Kaplan (1989). Later, the PRS was revised and supplemented to total 26 items by adding 10 to the 16 items by Hartig et al. (1997). This study used the Korean version of the PRS with 4 factors of ‘repose’, ‘fascination’, ‘coherence’, and ‘legibility’ revised and supplemented by Lee and Hyun (2003). The Korean version of the PRS is a tool to measure how much of the measurement environment is prepared as a restorative environment, and the Cronbach’s α of this study was .918.
Visitor satisfaction and revisit intention
There was no problem with the reliability and validity of the satisfaction scale used in this study. Thus, we used the satisfaction scale comprised of 3 items adjusted by Lee (2016) in the visitor satisfaction survey on the expectation-outcome of visitors at the Suncheonman Bay National Garden. Each item was to be rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1: negative - 5: positive). Moreover, loyalty is consumer loyalty that customers have during purchase behavior as well as the degree of affection that shows continuous attachment to a specific brand (Aaker, 1992), which is defined as product repurchase intention and behavior (Lee, 2003). Consumer loyalty refers to the extent to which one is deeply committed to the preferred brand that induces constant purchase, and it can be classified into affective, cognitive, and conative loyalty (Oliver, 1999). Therefore, if visitors can fulfill affective and cognitive loyalty by visiting the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape, they tend to have revisit intention and recommend the experience to others around them (Zeithaml et al., 1996). The loyalty scale used in this study was the customer loyalty scale used by Gremler (1995), which was readjusted according to the situation of the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors and formed 3 items of loyalty, which were to be rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1: negative - 5: positive) (Zeisel, 1981). The Cronbach’s α of satisfaction and loyalty were .917 and .929, respectively.
Statistical analysis
IBM SPSS ver. 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. Cronbach’s α was calculated to analyze the reliability of the measurement tool. One-way ANOVA was conducted for PRS, color preference of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape plants, satisfaction, and loyalty. Tukey’s multiple range test was used for post-hoc testing. We conducted Pearson’s correlation analysis for correlation between key variables and correlation between image adjective emotional words and preferences and frequency analysis for loyalty, satisfaction ratio, and demographic characteristics. Regression analysis was conducted to analyze how key variables such as preference and demographic variables affect loyalty. Since gender, age, education, and occupation were surveyed on a nominal scale in the survey of demographic characteristics, they were converted to dummy variables in regression analysis. Total 7 occupations based on housewives were converted to dummy variables, such as self-employed, professionals, students, company employees, agriculture/forestry/fishery, and others. For education, total three levels based on high school graduates were converted to dummy variables, including university graduates and graduate school graduates.
Results and Discussion
Preference in Saemangeum landscape plant colors
As a result of examining the visitor preference in 8 Saemangeum reclaimed landscape plant colors (Table 2), F-value was 6 .571 and p -value was .001, showing that there was a statistically significant difference in visitor preference in 8 Saemangeum reclaimed landscape plant colors. The preference for purple was highest with the mean of 4.50 (SD = 0.67), followed by blue (4.19 ± 0.98) > green (4.05 ± 1.01) > red (4.04 ± 0.94) > white (3.99 ± 0.77) > yellow (3.93 ± 0.90) > pink (3.88 ± 0.93) > orange (3.79 ± 0.94). This is also closely correlated with colors and emotions among the visual environment in plant image perception in many color preference studies (Janssens, 2001; Chong et al., 2004; Ou et al., 2004). Just looking at green plants makes people relax and give comfort and happiness along with stability (Lee and Son, 1999). In Korea, words such as ‘blue ocean’, ‘green mountain’, and ‘blue sky’ are used, and this color is expressed in the West in different names such as blue for oceans, green for mountains, and sky blue for the sky (Kwon, 2002), indicating that image and color of the natural environment are significant in various aspects. Therefore, the result showing high emotional preference for blue and green supports the high preference for blue and green in this study.
Importance and color preference according to the morphological characteristics of Saemangeum landscape lilies
As a result of examining the importance according to the morphological characteristics of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape lilies (Table 3), F-value was 16.595 and p-value was .001, showing that there was a statistically significant difference in visitor importance according to the morphological characteristics of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape lilies. By examining the importance of 5 morphological characteristics of lilies, we discovered that the respondents considered the color of the flower most important with the mean of 4.63 (SD = 0.60), followed by flower shape (4.29 ± 0.74) > flowering direction (4.29 ± 0.74) > fragrance (3.94 ± 0.97) > size (3.84 ± 0.93). As a result of examining the preference in 6 colors of reclaimed landscape lilies (Table 4), F-value was 4.812 and p-value was .001, showing that there was a statistically significant difference in visitor preference in the colors of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape lilies. The preference for orange was highest with the mean of 4.28 (SD = 0.75), followed by red (4.23 ± 0.88) > white (4.20 ± 0.80) > yellow (4.13 ± 0.82) > dark pink (4.04 ± 0.81) > mixed color (3.79 ± 1.08). This result is supported by Woo (2011) who discovered in a preference survey of cut flowers and flower colors that the color of cut flowers showed highest preference, followed by shape and fragrance. This is consistent with the result of this study showing that color was considered most important among the 5 morphological characteristics of lilies, followed by flower shape and fragrance. In particular, humans accept most information (at least 70%) using sight among the five senses (Whang et al., 1997), and perception of plant image is also closely related to color and emotion among the visual environment, which supports the importance of plant color.
PRS according to the demographic characteristics of Saemangeum reclaimed land visitors
As a result of examining age differences according to the PRS of Saemangeum reclaimed land flower landscape (Table 5), ‘coherence’ (‘This place is too crowded’, ‘This place is very disorganized’, ‘This place is consistent’, ‘This place is in order’) among the 4 factors of the PRS was higher among respondents in their 30s and 40s than in those in their 60s and older, showing statistical significance between groups. This study decided on one section within the experimental field when creating the flower landscape in the Saemangeum reclaimed land and formed the flower beds in a consistent and orderly fashion using lilies. The landscape using flowering plants using adjacent colors, analogous colors, and complementary contrasts may have given different impressions to different age groups (image not provided). This result is supported by Jang et al. (2019) who discovered in a survey of visitors in an agro-healing experience center with gardens that the ‘coherence’ factor including ‘This place is too crowded’ and ‘This place is very disorganized’ scored lower among the 60s and older than among 20–50s. However, although not statistically significant, respondents in their 60s or older showed higher scores in all three factors such as ‘repose’ including ‘Being here takes me away from the exhausting reality (3.79 ± 0.96)’, ‘fascination’ including ‘This place has fascinating features (3.85 ± 1.09)’, and ‘legibility’ including ‘This place is intelligibly organized (3.26 ± 1.03)’ compared to respondents in their 40s or younger. This indicated that the silver generation who have had more experience encountering plants, have lived a longer life, and are more easygoing than the busy younger generation tended to better understand and enjoy the landscape of colorful flowers.
As a result of examining the differences in the 4 factors of the PRS by education (Table 6), ‘coherence’ scored higher among those who graduated graduate school than high school graduates, and ‘legibility’ scored higher among high school graduates than university graduates with statistical significance. This result is similar to the study by Jang et al. (2019) who discovered that ‘legibility’ of visitors in an agro-healing experience center with gardens was highest among high school graduates compared to university or graduate school graduates, and ‘coherence’ was lowest among high school graduates with statistical significance.
As a result of examining the differences in the 4 factors of the PRS by average monthly income, ‘repose’, ‘fascination’, and ‘coherence’ scored lowest among those with the average monthly income of 2 million KRW or lower and highest among 4.01–5 million KRW, showing a statistically significant difference. ‘Legibility’, which is an understanding of place or space, showed similar scores among the groups, but ‘repose’ including ‘Being here helps me relax my brain that is tired from work (3.99 ± 0.91)’ or ‘fascination’ including ‘This place has fascinating features (3.85 ± 1.09)’ and ‘This place has many interesting things that capture my attention (3.91 ± 0.93)’ scored higher among high-income groups (Table 7). The highest score of coherence in the 4.01–5 million KRW group is supported by Jang et al. (2019) who discovered that, out of the 4 factors of PRS of visitors visiting vegetable and herb gardens in an agro-healing experience center, coherence scored higher among those with the average monthly income of 4 million KRW or higher than those with 3 million KRW or lower. As a result of examining the differences by occupation (Table 8), ‘repose’ and ‘fascination’ showed a statistically significant difference. ‘Repose’ scored higher among self-employed and professional groups than students, and ‘fascination’ scored higher among self-employed, professional, company employee, and agriculture/forestry/fishery groups than students. Moon (2020) reported that, if the natural environment of colorful landscapes using flowering plants is the ideal fascination as a restorative environment, it is attractive enough to have aesthetically pleasing or interesting stimuli for humans and create an environment that is tender to the eyes (Moon, 2020). This indicates that it is important to create a restorative environment according to the characteristics of subjects such as age and occupation, which requires continuous research in the future.
Satisfaction and revisit intention of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors
As a result of examining the satisfaction and revisit intention of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors, satisfaction showed high scores in all three items with more than 89% of positive responses such as ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’. The most negative response of ‘Strongly disagree’ was 1%, indicating that visitor satisfaction was extremely high (Table 9). Loyalty showed high scores in all three items with more than 87% of positive responses such as ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ (Table 10). Satisfaction of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors has a significant effect on revisit intention (Park, 2014), which has significance in evaluating the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape and thus can be a key variable in securing the demand market (kind, 2006). Ahn and Yoo (2016) conducted a satisfaction survey on visitors to agricultural shows and discovered that most of them had revisit intention with 82% of visitors claiming that they were satisfied. Jang et al. (2020) conducted a satisfaction and loyalty survey on visitors according to perceived restorativeness of healing gardens and reported that there were 76 – 85% of positive responses such as ‘Somewhat agree’ and ‘Strongly agree’ in both satisfaction and loyalty. These two studies support the results of this study that there was more than 87% of revisit intention and satisfaction among Saemangeum reclaimed land visitors.
Correlation among key variables of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors
As a result of examining the correlation between the 4 factors of the PRS of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors (‘repose’, ‘fascination’, ‘coherence’, ‘legibility’), ‘satisfaction’, ‘landscape preference’, and loyalty’ (Table 11), ‘loyalty’ showed a statistically significant correlation with the 4 factors of the PRS, ‘satisfaction’, and ‘landscape preference’. In particular, ‘loyalty’ showed a high positive correlation (higher than 0.7) with ‘satisfaction’, ‘landscape preference’, and ‘fascination’. Moreover, satisfaction showed a high positive correlation (higher than 0.6) with landscape preference and ‘fascination’, and ‘repose’ showed a high positive correlation (higher than 0.7) with ‘fascination’. However, while ‘legibility’ (comprised of ‘I think I can easily draw a map of this place in my head’, ‘It is easy to find my way around this place’, ‘This place is intelligibly organized’) had a statistically significant correlation with key variables such as loyalty, there was a low positive correlation (under 0.3) in all factors except ‘repose’. It may have been extremely difficult to find the way to get to this place because the site within the Saemangeum reclaimed land is not yet specified in the guide map and it is a research complex of an institution. However, there was a high correlation of key variables such as ‘loyalty’ and ‘satisfaction’, and among the PRS factors, satisfaction had a high correlation with landscape preference and ‘fascination’. This result implied that the attention restoration of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors or the fascination they feel by the landscape may have a positive and valuable effect on the need to create Saemangeum reclaimed landscapes in the future. Kaplan (2001) argues that a perceived restorative environment must be far away from the everyday environment, have certain extent or scale because just being far away is not enough, and also have aesthetic interest and attractive elements. This supports the results of this study that ‘fascination’ has a high positive correlation with ‘landscape preference’, ‘satisfaction’, ‘loyalty’, and ‘repose’.
Effects of key variables and demographic variables of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors on revisit intention
A multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the effects of restorative environment, landscape preference, and satisfaction on the revisit intention of visitors (Table 12). In the multicollinearity diagnosis to see whether each independent variable is independent from each other, the collinearity statistics tolerance and VIF are close to 1, indicating that there was a low correlation between independent variables and thus there was no multicollinearity. Since Durbin-Watson, which checks the existence of autocorrelation, was close to 2, there was no autocorrelation (Data not shown). Therefore, as a result of conducting multiple regression analysis including dummy variables to examine the effects of PRS (4 factors: ‘repose’, ‘fascination’, ‘coherence’, and ‘legibility’), landscape preference, satisfaction, and demographic variables (control variables) on ‘loyalty’, it was found that landscape preference and ‘fascination’ among the 4 factors of PRS had a positive effect on ‘loyalty’, and age 20–29 (β = −.29, p < .05) had a significant negative effect on ‘loyalty’. In other words, higher attention restoration due to preference and ‘fascination’ and age older than 29 resulted in higher visitor ‘loyalty’ to the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape. On the other hand, gender, education, and occupation did not affect ‘loyalty’.
These variables explain ‘loyalty’ by approximately 70%. Landscape preference has the highest explanatory power at 55%, which is increased by 13% and 2% each by adding ‘fascination’ of the restoration environment and age (20 – 29), thereby securing total 70% explanatory power. Moreover, F-value 79.07 was significant at the level of p < .001, proving that the regression formula below is suitable. Therefore, for relative explanatory power of independent variables that affect ‘loyalty’ of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors, ‘landscape preference’ had the highest effect, followed by ‘fascination’ and age (20s), and ‘landscape preference’ for the Saemangeum reclaimed land turned out to be the most influential variable. The results of this study proved that the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape affects positive emotions such as ‘fascination’ in the landscape or visitor preference for the landscape, which affects revisit intention of visitors. Hartig et al. (1991) reported that when a certain environment has fascinating elements, it naturally captures attention without much effort (Kaplan, 1993), and this natural environment tends to have many features that restore orienting attention. Lee (2007) reported that orienting attention can be restored by looking at many plants, which are fascinating elements that can be obtained from natural landscape, which will have a positive effect on emotions. These two studies support the usefulness of this study’s results that natural landscape like the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape has an influence on ‘loyalty’. Therefore, as reported by Hartig et al. (1991) and Ulrich et al. (1991), fascinating green landscape with plants such as the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape will have positive effects that increase positive emotions such as pleasure and satisfaction.
Conclusion
This study was conducted to determine the effects of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape colors on perceived restorativeness and revisit intention. A survey was conducted on 120 general respondents, and the responses from 112 respondents were analyzed excluding 8 inappropriate responses. The average age of all respondents was 48.60 ± 12.99, and there were 49 male and 63 female respondents. As a result of analyzing the psychological index of the Saemangeum landscape images with the demographic variables of visitors using 4 factors of the PRS (repose, fascination, coherence, legibility), there was statistical significance by age, education, average monthly income, and occupation. As a result of examining the correlation between satisfaction with the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape, preference, 4 factors of the PRS, and loyalty, there was a positive correlation between satisfaction, preference, 4 factors of the PRS, and loyalty with statistical significance. In particular, there was a high positive correlation between loyalty, satisfaction, preference, and ‘fascination’ among the 4 factors of the PRS. Moreover, respondents preferred purple the most among 8 colors of the Saemangeum landscape, and ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ showed the highest ratio of more than 87% in terms of satisfaction and loyalty. As a result of conducting multiple regression analysis including dummy variables to examine the effects of satisfaction, preference, PRS, and demographic variables (control variables) of Saemangeum reclaimed landscape visitors on loyalty, it was found that landscape preference and ‘fascination’ among the 4 factors of PRS had a positive effect on loyalty, and age 20–29 (β = −.29, p < .05) had a significant negative effect on loyalty. In other words, higher attention restoration due to preference and ‘fascination’ and age older than 29 resulted in higher loyalty to the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape. On the other hand, gender, education, and occupation did not affect landscape preference. The results of this study suggested that the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape with green spaces spreading at a large scale will affect positive emotions such as ‘fascination’ in landscape or landscape color preferences of visitors, and thus will be useful for increasing the revisit intention of visitors.
Therefore, this study is an empirical study applied to the field to measure perceived restorativeness when there are insufficient studies and cases about the restorative environment planning in Saemangeum reclaimed lands of Korea, and it has significance in providing implications about the perceived restorativeness effect of the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape. From the academic view, this study is differentiated from previous studies in that it conducted a survey on visitors who visited the specific site of the Saemangeum reclaimed land far from daily living space. From the social view, it has significance in suggesting the usefulness of the restorative environment in the Saemangeum reclaimed landscape to improve the quality of human life within the social trend that recently emphasizes the importance of natural landscape due to COVID-19. However, there are limitations in that this study covered only a specific site within the research facility of National Institute of Crop Science using the PRS, which raises the need to validate the elements of restorative environment by conducting more diverse empirical analyses in the future. Therefore, continuous research is needed on visitor satisfaction and revisit intention for flower landscape images and colors of Saemangeum reclaimed land to use as tourism resources and for restoration of the natural environment in the Saemangeum reclaimed land.
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