Educational and enjoyment benefits of visitor education centers at botanical gardens

The beautiful scenery and rich diversity of plant species in their living collections have been helping botanical gardens (BGs) attract visitors and thus serve as a base for public education on biodiversity. However, outdoor plant collections and landscape provide limited information for interpreting the field of biodiversity science as a whole. As a complement, a new tendency is to set up visitor education centers (VECs) inside BGs. In order to understand the extent that VECs can enhance the educational function of BGs, we conducted a study in five BGs containing VECs throughout mainland China. Our study indicated that the educational function of VECs worked fairly well despite the great variation among the BGs’ VECs. In all five BGs investigated, visitors to the VECs believed that they gained significantly more knowledge compared to those that did not visit VECs. Meanwhile, the VECs’ educational roles were significantly associated with demographic characteristics. In most BGs, visitors that were older, with a lower educational level, from a non-local province as well as those who had visited the garden more than once tended to have a better experience in learning compared to those who did not visit the VECs. Furthermore, in two of the five BGs, visitors to the VECs had significantly higher satisfaction than those who did not visit the VECs. The study results highlight the importance of improving educational facilities such as setting up VECs to allow BGs to play a better role in biodiversity conservation.