Waiting Areas of Airports as Restorative Environments for Travelers

Abstract

The main goal of the present study is to investigate if physical attributes in waiting areas of airports can influence their perceived restorativeness for travelers. This study employed a pre-survey to select the physical attributes that may have an impact on perceived restorativeness of airports and then applied an experiment as research method to obtain quantitative data. The present study used 203 students of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology as participants. Participants were required to rate the stimulus material of waiting areas in airports with different physical characteristics in the questionnaire. By comparing participants' mean scores, this study compares perceived restorativeness of waiting areas in airports with different physical settings and get results about the influence of different physical attributes.

The results suggest that there are four physical attributes (windows, crowding, seats and plant settings) having an impact on tourists’ perceived restorativeness in waiting areas of airports. Perceived restorativeness of the waiting area in airports can be increased when the waiting areas in airports have windows, when they have abundant seating, when they have less people in them and when they have plants.