Abstract:

National parks provide settings for outdoor recreational activities. Mount Ararat is one of the well-known mountainous national parks for summit climbs and functions as a habitat variety of plants and animals in Europe. Besides its essential recreational and ecological services, the mountain has a cultural and spiritual heritage. With the growth in recreational use, decisionmakers confronted with this increasing complexity and uncertainty about keeping the park maintained sustainably. This study examines the park's recreational potential by analysing its landscape value, climatic value, accessibility, recreative convenience, and negative factor indicators to help decisionmakers make long-term plans. According to the analysis results, Mount Ararat was found as a high levelled outdoor recreation setting with a rate of 63% as predicted. Recommendations and implications were discussed. This study can give managers useful information to plan and design recreational settings that support sustainability in the national park.

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