A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Preferences for Landscape Styles and Landscape Elements

Abstract

Visual preferences for various landscapes have been of long-standing interest to researchers. However, the direct relationship of landscape style with preference as well as cross-cultural comparison of preferences between Western and non-Western groups has received little attention. Three aspects of this problem are addressed in this study. First, the characteristics of preferences for three landscape styles, namely, Korean, Japanese, and Western are presented. Second, characteristics of preferences for three landscape elements-water, vegetation, and rock-are analyzed. Finally, a photo-questionnaire was used to make cross-cultural comparisons of preferences between a Korean group and a Western tourist group. It was found that regardless of cultural differences, both Japanese landscape style and the landscape element water were most preferred by both Koreans and Western tourists. For the Koreans, Western landscape style was more preferred than their own Korean landscape style whereas Korean landscape style is more preferred by Western tourists. The results point to both landscape style and landscape elements as the influencing factors on landscape preference, regardless of cultural differences, and there are both differences and similarities in preferences between Korean and Western groups.