Park visitation in the context of Khartoum town

Abstract

Parks improve people's physical and mental well-being, strengthen communities, and make towns and neighborhoods more appealing places to live and work. Many reasons discourage frequent park visitations, such as poor park characteristics, poor management system, and the lack of programs to encourage park visitation. Participation in different outdoor activities has become a necessity for many people nowadays. However, many residents are not engaged in recreational activities in Khartoum, making parks an important element. Therefore, the study aimed at investigating parks characteristics and different patterns of users based on societal needs. The study concentrates on the residents' characteristics such as age, gender, income, education level; these characteristics are tested against park visitation patterns such as type of visitation, the best day for visitation, and visit frequency. A two hundred and fifty (250) participant questionnaire survey was carried out in Al Tifl Park to assess the park's visitation pattern based on the purposive sampling technique. The result shows that most of the visitation patterns were not frequent regardless of the visitors' characteristics. It proves that the visitation pattern was not based on the visitors' characteristics but rather on the park characteristics. The study recommends that the park's features be redesigned based on user affinity to improve visitation, visitor benefits, and income generation.