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of a guided tour, Tilden and Heritage (1977)
mentions “Nothing in Excess” which implies too
much information conveyed may confuse visitors
and make them impatient. Beck and Cable (1997)
accordingly proposes 15 principles for interpreta-
tion and argues that the interpretation contents
should be designed in appropriate quantity.
However, the past research about interpretation
is more concentrated on the qualitative principle
on interpretation. The quantitative research on the
optimizing the design of an interpretational tour
is still relative rare. For the optimization method,
understanding the relationship between resource
input and output is important. In interpretation
design, the input resource is the interpretation
time, and the output is tourist's satisfaction by the
tourists. Accordingly, this paper aims at exploring
the relationship between interpretation time and
satisfaction.
to help respondents recalling the interpretation
contents.
A total of 550 visitors from 26 guided walks
leaded by 21 interpreters were invited participate
in the survey, and 500 visitors accepted the invi-
tation. Eventually, 496 valid and usable question-
naires were received.
3.3
Time-satisfaction relationship
In this study, a logistic curve is used to fit the
time-satisfaction relationship for each topic. The
logistic curve used in this study can be expressed
as Equation 1:
100
(1)
S
=
1
a t
i
+
e
where
S
i
= satisfaction of
i
ith topic;
a, r
= statisti-
cal parameters; and
t
i
= interpretation time of
i
th
topic.
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1
Research design
This study was conducted by using a three-step
procedure. First, a list containing 17 topics, which
covers subjects of geological landscapes, local cul-
tures, stories, legends, and plants, was identified by
interviewing the interpreters. Second, the respond-
ents were asked to answer a questionnaire includ-
ing the measurement of their perceived satisfaction
with each interpretation topic, visitor characteris-
tics (age, gender, place of residence, the purposes
of visiting, who are their companion, and how do
they know the Geopark) via face-to-face survey.
Third, the interviewers listened to the interpreta-
tion contents that were recorded by the recording
pen attached on the interpreters during the whole
process of the guided walks and then investigate
the time spent on each topic.
4 RESULT
4.1
Respondent profile
In total, the respondents included 250 (50.4%)
males and 246 (49.6%) females. Based on age
group, 31.1 percent of the respondents were 16
and younger, 34.1 percent in the 16-30 age groups
which was the largest age group, 26.7 percent aged
31-45, 5.9 percent aged 46-60, and 2.2 percent
aged 61 and over. Based on where they live, the
respondents from the Northern Taiwan was the
largest group (40.4%), with 29.1 percent from Mid-
dle Taiwan, 16.8 percent from Southern Taiwan,
11.3 percent from Eastern Taiwan, and 2.4 percent
from China and overseas.
Yehliu Geopark is one of the best sites for envi-
ronmental and geological education in Taiwan.
Thus it has been selected by many elementary
schools and high schools as an outdoor teaching
place. In our survey, 223 (36%) respondents were
students who went to the Geopark for outdoor
teaching. 32.3 percent of the respondents went to
Yehliu Geopark with their family, colleagues and
friends.
Regarding the time of the interpretation service,
the optimal length for the majority (68%) is 30-90
minutes. Only 25.3 percent of the respondents pre-
fer 90-150 minutes. Only 3.7% prefers 151 minutes
or longer.
3.2
Data collection
Visitors, who received the Chinese interpretation
service, to Yehliu Geopark were surveyed over a
3- month period from July to September in 2011
including weekdays and weekends, as well as
national holidays. The respondents were asked to
score their perceived satisfaction between 1 and
100 for each topic. A reference spectrum of the
scoring (i.e., 1-20 refers to very low satisfaction,
20-40 refers to low satisfaction, 40-60 refers to
neutral satisfaction, 60-80 refers to high satisfac-
tion, and 80-100 refers to very high satisfaction)
was also provided to ensure that the respondents
scored at similar standard. Colored photographs
were also attached beside the corresponding topics
4.2
Interpretation time of each topic
By listening to the audio files that recorded the
whole interpretation contents for each guided walk,
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