Rest station's value-added amenities for biking tourism and leisure: Perspectives of seasoned bicyclists and infrequent bicyclists

Abstract

The infrastructural development of the Greater Bay Area in China has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Given the national plans, local governments have to upgrade their urban habitat, convenience, leisure and recreation. Particularly, municipal governments have built lengthy bike lanes for multiple purposes such as commuting, exercise, leisure and tourism. Users' preferences have become more diversified. Within the GBA region, several bike lanes exceed 100 km and thus many rest stations are available along the route. Nevertheless, prior bike travelling studies in Asia Pacific countries have focused on the whole trip experience and bike lanes' safety design focusing in rural areas. There exists a paucity of information about users’ preference of amenities for a relatively long-haul bike journey for leisure and tourism purpose in a metropolitan setting. To fill the gap, research with mixed methods using interviews with two groups of insightful persons and a survey of 342 potential users were undertaken to gather their perspectives on the 30 value-added amenities of rest stations for biking travelling. At last, the implications of findings on related policy planning were discussed inclusive the proposed establishment of a commission comprising boarder representativeness of stakeholders and the prioritized facilities in the planning for optimization of bike path for tourism and leisure.