Sociodemographic profile of tourists and visit motivation
A total of 197 tourists participated in our study, composed of 62% (n = 122) male and 38% (n = 75) female. In terms of age distribution, the majority of the tourists surveyed were between 20 and 40 years old (age group B: n = 120; 61%) followed by above 40 (age group C: n = 46, 23%) and below 20 (age group A: n =31; 16%). The distribution of tourists based on their educational background was equal between those with basic (elementary to high school education) (n = 98, 50%) and higher (college or higher) (n = 99, 50%) education. While, in terms of nationality, 85% (n = 167) of the visitors were Filipino and 15% (n = 30) were foreigners. The motivation to visit MBCS significantly differed among tourists (ꭓ2 = 290.12, df = 5, p < .001, V = 0.50) and the highest motivation was ‘to see bats’ (n = 144; 73%) followed by ‘to see caves’ (n =104; 53%) and for leisure (n = 102; 52%). A total of 61% (n = 121) tourists perceived bats positively (p> 0.05 across demographic backgrounds). Additionally, in terms of general bat knowledge and associations, 41% of the tourists correctly perceived bats as an “animal” and the remaining 59% thought bats where “aswang ” or “manangga l” (a local version of a vampire in the Philippines), but this response only differed in terms of education level (ꭓ2 = 16.64, df= 3,p = . 001, V = .29) with higher misperception observed among sampled tourists with basic education (n = 25, 26%) compared to those with higher education (n = 5, 5%).