We are doing a study related to perception of visitors on the level of crowdedness of coastal and marine sites. We found different levels based on the visitors’ country of origin.
Indulgence versus Restraint, femininity versus masculine cultural values may influence it. People of indulgence and femininity societies may be more interested in being at a crowded site than those of restraint and masculine cultural values.
You might be interested in the work of Hofstede on synthetic cultures that considers 5 dimensions in culture analysis -- low vs. high power distance, collectivism vs. individualism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, short-term vs. long-term orientation (see below).
Maybe there are dimensions that apply to coastal and marine sites if you think on maritime nations as Denmark.
Book Social Interaction, Globalization and Computer-Aided Analysi...
Also read E. T. Hall on proxemics. He talks about perception of crowdedness in various cultures, specifically Arab.
I agree, Hofstede is interesting for this and also what Ivo wrote. When People asked me years ago how is living in Beijing, so i said one fact is, that the streets are every day as crowded as in Europe two days before Christmas and everybody manages it and nobody complains in contrast to Germany.
See Doug Wilkinson's 1966 study of the Baffin Eskimos' perception of crowding (LAND OF THE LONG DAY, 1966, Toronto: Clarke Irwin & Co). Wilkinson's friend Idlouk wanted to know how Wilkinson's people lived, and when told of the cities, Idlouk shook his head in disbelief/disapproval; he couldn't understand how people lived like that (p. 12): "His mind could not accept the fact that so many people could live and work in such a confined space" as Manhattan--and he had bad dreams about it. He said he kept waking up, thinking of all those people in such a small space: "...pushing and shoving, fighting to breathe. I see people stacked up one atop the other and I become one of them striving to climb upward to reach open air. I awake in a sweat...and for a long time I cannot sleep." To Idlouk, his camp of 31 people was uncomfortably crowded. He was always happy to return to his camp, but after a few days, he grew "tired of many people so close to me. I want to get away..., out into the open spaces of ice-covered sea where I can look out and see no other soul. Then I breathe deeply; I am happy; I feel like a man again...." (p. 13) IN SHORT, the perception of crowding is very much relative to one's cultural perspectives. See my "Discussion" (pp. 431-452) of these matters in LONG-TERM SUBSISTENCE CHANGE IN PREHISTORIC NORTH AMERICA (eds. Dale R. Croes, Rebecca A. Hawkins, and Barry L. Isaac, 1992, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press [Supplement 6, Research in Economic Anthropology]). [Also note, therein, the material I cite from Dominique Legros' study of the Tutchone Athapaskans of Yukon Territory--who are so overpopulated at a density of 0.7/100 sq. km that the group is divided into sleek "haves" and starving "have-nots".]
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