GPS-Based Mobile Exercise Application: An Alternative Tool to Assess Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Visitors’ Activities in a National Park

Visitors’ behavior in national parks can be influenced by seasonal variations in climate and preferred activities. Seasonality can produce different space consumption patterns, and impact visitor experience and natural resource use. The purpose of this study was to explore the seasonal spatial patterns of visitors’ activities using a mobile exercise application within the context of Seoraksan National Park in South Korea. A dataset composed of 5142 starting and ending points of 2639 activities (hiking and walking) created by 1206 mobile exercise application users (January–December 2015) were collected from a leading mobile exercise application operator. GIS-based spatial analytical techniques were used to analyze the spatial patterns of activity points across seasons and days (weekdays/weekends). Results indicated considerable seasonal and daily variations in activity distribution and hot spots (i.e., locations of potential congestion or crowding). The findings enable park managers to mitigate negative impacts to natural resources as well as enhance visitors’ experiences. Also, it allows potential visitors to decide when to visit certain sites via mobile application to ensure optimal conditions. Furthermore, the GPS-based exercise mobile application can be used as a new methodological approach to understand spatio-temporal patterns of visitors’ behavior within national parks and other natural protected areas.

There is rising concern that increases in visitor numbers could negatively affect natural resources within protected natural areas. This has raised questions regarding the effectiveness of indirect management strategies in reducing depreciative behaviors among visitors across different natural resource settings. Leave No Trace (LNT), which focuses on indirect management tactics, is an educational program adopted by parks and forests for reducing visitor impacts. LNT promotes stewardship using seven guiding principles: (a) plan ahead and prepare, (b) travel and camp on durable surfaces, (c) dispose of waste properly, (d) leave what you find, (e) minimize campfire impacts, (f) respect wildlife, and (g) be considerate of other visitors. These principles were developed for wilderness settings but have been revised to apply to backcountry and frontcountry areas. This article examined the use of LNT practices in three different natural resource settings and attempts to contribute to this knowledge gap. Data for this article were obtained from on-site surveys in a national park (Rocky Mountain National Park), a national forest (Shawnee National Forest) and three state parks in Wyoming (Glendo, Curt Gowdy, Wyoming Territorial Prison Historic Site). Standardized questions were developed to examine the four topics: (a) appropriateness of LNT principles, (b) difficulty to perform LNT, (c) perceived control over LNT behaviors, and (d) behavioral intentions relative to LNT principles. Results revealed that across the three settings visitors’ responses within each topic aligned with LNT principles. However, compared to national forest and state park visitors, national park visitors were the least likely to view LNT principles as appropriate yet most likely to indicate that they behave in accordance with LNT guidance. There were no differences among visitors to the three settings regarding perceived difficulty of performing LNT practices. It is unclear if these findings are applicable to other parks and forests— researchers are encouraged to replicate this work in a range of outdoor settings. By understanding differences between visitors to different natural settings, managers and educators can improve the efficacy of LNT messaging to individual natural resource settings, increase the adoption of Leave No Trace practices, and decrease depreciation of natural resources. Subscribe to JPRA

The purpose of this study is to segment the MZ generation (Old Millennial/Young Millennial/Generation Z), which will lead future national park visiting culture and trends, to compare differences in national park visiting behavior and identify the characteristics of each generation. The results are as follow. First, the Old Millennial generation has the highest rate of visiting mountain-type national parks, but compared to Young Millennials and Generation Z, they are a generation with a higher rate of visiting marine & coastal-type and urban-type national parks. Additionally, this generation visits national parks by car with a variety of companions( friends/colleagues/lover, family, mountain climbing clubs/clubs). They mainly engage in accommodation travel and summit climbing activities, and enjoy linked tourism such as visiting tourist attractions both before and after visiting the national park as well as before or after visiting the national park. Second, young millennials mainly visit mountain-type national parks with friends/colleagues/ lover or alone by car, and the highest proportion of visitors enjoy summit climbing on day trips and visit national parks only. However, compared to Generation Z and Old Millennials, this generation has the highest rate of visiting other tourist destinations before or after visiting a national park. This generation is mainly comprised of office workers with an income of more than 2 million won to less than 4 million won who visit for the purposes of recreation/rest/healing, experience of appreciating natural scenery/cultural assets, and promoting friendship. Lastly, Generation Z mainly visits mountainous national parks with friends/colleagues/lover using various means of transportation such as private car and public transportation, and mainly climb to the top as a day trip. However, among the MZ generation, they explore lowlands the most. They have a higher rate of only visiting national parks than linked tourism, and visit for the purposes of recreation/rest/healing, promoting friendship, and experience of appreciating natural scenery/cultural assets. This generation is mainly comprised of students with an income of less than 4 million won. Based on the research results, we aim to contribute to improving the satisfaction of MZ generation visitors in national parks.

This study was conducted to obtain the basic research about Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus), and to establish a conservation area into Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park, South Korea. We recorded Siberian roe deer field signs (bedding sites, feeding areas, feces and tracks etc), and habitat variables such as nearest distance to the watercourse, trails, slope, aspect, forest type and land cover etc. from Jan. 2006 to Dec. 2007 in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park. According to the research of habitat characteristics of Siberian roe deer inhabited in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park preferred mixed forest consisted of aged forest and middle-aged forest on the gentle slope which was close to hydrosphere in the middle elevation area of altitude of 400~600m above sea level in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park. The results indicated that Siberian roe deer appeared to prefer south slope or north slope during the snow season and west or east slope during the non-snow season. The area of most suitable habitat for Siberian roe deer in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park was 125.8km (32% of the total area) followed by 244.3km buffer area (62.2% of the total area), and 22.9km unsuitable habitat area (5.8% of the total area), which means environmentally unsuitable habitat for Siberian roe deer was rare in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park. Thus, the area 92 박용수.이우신 󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏 classified as major area in Seoraksan(Mt.) National Park appeared to be most important for the protection of Siberian roe deer.

This study examined visitor use of Seoraksan National Park in Korea by seniors. The objectives were to analyze the effects of services and facilities on satisfaction and behavioral intention (to revisit and recommend to others) and explore gender differences. This study was conducted onsite in 2014 and data were collected from seniors (> 60 years old). The study variables included travel behavior, visitation experiences, service and facility preferences, and socio-economic characteristics. Study results (N=186) showed 50% male and 50% female respondents, visitors came mostly with family or friends; stayed at the park less than 24 hours, and visited 1–2 times a year. The major purposes of their visits were hiking, sightseeing, and health. Results showed that visitors are mostly satisfied with their national park experience and significant predictors of satisfaction included: size of the parking lot, well-maintained trails, and convenient rest areas; intention to recommend the park to others and intention to revisit were predicted by trails. Gender differences were found on five variables: trail, hiking information center, visitor center, camping site, and shelter, with female satisfaction scores lower on each of these items. This research contributes to a better understanding of senior national park visitor preferences and provides needed information so park managers can improve services and facilities and meet the future needs for a growing and active population of seniors in Korea. Future research should examine a more representative sample of seniors at Korean national parks and assess the benefits of time spent in the natural environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely impacted US National Park Service (NPS) units. This study seeks to help inform future visitor use management and planning by compiling data from five NPS units (Acadia, Glacier, Grand Teton, Shenandoah, and Yellowstone National Parks), focusing on how the pandemic influenced management and impacted visitor use. Data were collected from both park managers and visitors. Results provide understanding regarding managerial changes, user-capacity limits, and documented changes in visitation in 2020 compared to 2019. These results are coupled with park visitor data from 2020, including visitor demographics, motivations and perceived outcomes, information sources for visiting during the pandemic, potential behavioral shifts in response to COVID-19 while on-site, and intent to visit in the future. The results suggest that the distinct shifts in visitation patterns during 2020 impacted park managers’ ability to predict and efficiently respond to visitor use changes. This issue was exacerbated by staffing shortages attributed to the pandemic. Lessons learned regarding what worked well (e.g., respondents were able to achieve health-related outcomes), and what could be improved (e.g., knowing that visitors adapted behaviors to maintain personal safety, and future staffing allocations can be focused temporally and spatially based on these 2020 use trends) can be incorporated to help prepare park managers, surrounding gateway communities, and state tourism authorities for the future.

Understanding the activities and preferences of visitors is crucial for managing protected areas and planning conservation strategies. Conservation culturomics promotes the use of user-generated online content in conservation science. Geotagged social media content is a unique source of in situ information on human presence and activities in nature. Photographs posted on social media platforms are a promising source of information, but analyzing large volumes of photographs manually remains laborious. We examined the application of state-of-the-art computer-vision methods to studying human-nature interactions. We used semantic clustering, scene classification, and object detection to automatically analyze photographs taken in Finnish national parks by domestic and international visitors. Our results showed that human-nature interactions can be extracted from user-generated photographs with computer vision. The different methods complemented each other by revealing broad visual themes related to level of the data set, landscape photogeneity, and human activities. Geotagged photographs revealed distinct regional profiles for national parks (e.g., preferences in landscapes and activities), which are potentially useful in park management. Photographic content differed between domestic and international visitors, which indicates differences in activities and preferences. Information extracted automatically from photographs can help identify preferences among diverse visitor groups, which can be used to create profiles of national parks for conservation marketing and to support conservation strategies that rely on public acceptance. The application of computer-vision methods to automatic content analysis of photographs should be explored further in conservation culturomics, particularly in combination with rich metadata available on social media platforms.

A cornerstone of US national parks is their democratic ideal; the country's most iconic history and natural features should be accessible to all. However, this ideal has not yet been fully realized. Racial/ethnic minorities are substantially underrepresented in the national parks, and lack of transportation may contribute to this issue. This study examines national park visitation patterns of three racial/ethnic groups (Hispanic, Black and White) and transportation barriers and incentives to visiting national parks. An Internet-based survey was administered to a stratified panel of New York City residents. The survey found that Blacks had the lowest rate of national park visitation and Hispanics reported the greatest number of transportation constraints (“barriers”) to visiting national parks and the greatest responsiveness to transportation incentives (“bridges”). Whites had the highest rate of park visitation and reported the lowest number of transportation barriers and the lowest responsiveness to transportation bridges. Study findings help inform management of transportation to encourage more equitable access to national parks and offer insights into theories explaining underrepresentation of racial/ethnic groups in parks and outdoor recreation.

Search and rescue (SAR) is vital for visitor safety in US national parks, which are popular destinations for tourists. Previous studies have described SAR and seasonal visitation patterns, but not in the context of overall visitation. In addition, studies on the association between SAR and developed park areas remain limited. Concurrently, social media can be valuable for sharing information about conservation awareness and the joy of being outdoors. However, social media can potentially be an avenue for users to share risky and dangerous behaviors performed during attempts to obtain photos and videos. The associations between SAR and social media have not been discussed in existing literature. Variables included recreational visits, developed site stay visits, backcountry visits, SAR incidents, and tweets. Data from 2017 were obtained from National Park Service visitor use statistics, the SAR incident dashboard, and the University of California, Irvine, Cloudberry application. Correlation analysis was performed using nonparametric Kendall rank correlation coefficients. Recreational visits were correlated with SAR incidents (rτ=0.415, P<0.001). Developed site stays were similarly correlated with SAR incidents (rτ=0.447, P<0.001), as were backcountry visits (rτ=0.428, P<0.001). Backcountry visits had a stronger correlation with fatalities (rτ=0.380, P<0.001) compared to developed site stays (rτ=0.304, P<0.001). Tweets were correlated with SAR incidents (rτ=0.468, P<0.001), recreational visits (rτ=0.403, P<0.001), and fatalities (rτ=0.367, P<0.001). Our findings demonstrate associations between national park visitation, SAR incidents, fatalities, and Twitter use and provides a concept framework for future prospective studies to further investigate the relationships between visitation, SAR, and social media.

Accessibility is a factor affecting national park visitation. However, the effect of accessibility on national park visitation is not fully understood. This paper examines the relationship between U.S. national park visitation and accessibility. First, the global and local accessibility indexes of each park unit are computed based on an accessibility model that takes into account the surrounding population and its proximity to the park unit. Integrated in the model is a distance decay coefficient that is derived from U.S. national park visitor surveys and therefore pertinent to the case of study. Then correlation analysis is performed between park visitation and accessibility based on park types, regions, and visitation types. Results show that total visitation is positively related to accessibility in National Memorials, Military Parks and Battlefield Parks/Sites but negatively related to accessibility in national parks and national monuments. However, recreational overnight stay visits are commonly negatively correlated to accessibility for almost all park types. Moreover, local accessibility index displays enhanced correlation coefficients with improved significance levels in many categories of analysis. Results suggest that historical/cultural national parks which often show positive correlations tend to attract more local visitors, but nature-based parks which mainly show negative correlations tend to attract more distant visitors.

This study suggests that some of the negative arguments related to naturalized plants raised in academic discussions are unreasonable through an analysis of trends in the academia's research on naturalized plants in South Korea. A total of 117 academic papers related to "naturalized plants" on the Korean Studies Information Service System (KISS) website were re-classified by space, the number of vascular plant species, the number of naturalized plant species, naturalization index (NI), and urbanization index (UI). Correlation between human interference and naturalized plant distribution, and between sizes of conservation areas and naturalized plant distribution were analyzed. According to the results, while there was a tendency between urban population and UI (<TEX>$r^2$</TEX> = 0.70, p = .000), the number of visitors in national parks had no relation to either the NI or the UI (r = 0.028 and r = 0.013, respectively). Likewise, there was no correlation between national parks or conservation areas and naturalized plant distribution (r = 0.014, r = 0.17, respectively). The average NI and the UI of forest areas were approximately twice as low as those of national parks. In estimated regression equation, when one hypothesizes that the entire 4,952 taxa of plants growing in South Korea, the number of naturalized plants, combining paleo-naturalized plants and neo-naturalized plants, amounted to 2,398 taxa, 48.43%. In the academia, Korean Endemic Plants are less than one quarter of 4,952 taxa. Such results signify that, contrary to discussions in the academia, it is meaningless to distinguish between naturalized plants and native plants. In certain aspects, academic discussions on naturalized plants in Korea have proceeded in a manner similar to cultural exclusion by mono-culturalism in a multi-cultural environment.

In the pages that follow, a series of tables and figures display visitor use statistics for calendar year 2024. By documenting visits, hours, and overnight stays across the National Park System, the National Park Service (NPS) Statistical Abstract offers a historical record of visitor use in parks and provides NPS staff and partners with a useful tool for effective management and planning. In 2024, 404 of 433 National Park System units collected and reported visitor use statistics; the remainder are unable to do so for a variety of reasons such as administration by another agency, non-federal land ownership, or new parks that lack staff and facilities for the management of visitor use statistics. The responsibility for compiling and summarizing visitor use statistics resides with the Socioeconomic and Resource Recovery Division in the Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate. The Division relies on the conscientious efforts of NPS field personnel to count, record, and report visitor use. This system of collecting and summarizing monthly visitor use data is combined with continuous review and assessment of park visitor use estimation procedures to promote consistency and accuracy of data. Detailed instructions for the units that collect data, monthly visitation summaries, and reports displaying trends in park visitation are available on the NPS Visitor Use Statistics website.

Understanding outdoor recreation participation and national park visitation by members of ethnic minority groups has been a particular focus of outdoor recreation researchers for the past twenty years. Attracting ethnic minorities, and understanding their recreation needs and interests, demands a multi-faceted approach and sustained commitment not only by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) but by other resource management agencies as well.

The nexus between visitor satisfaction and expenditure behaviour in national parks: The case of Dragon Palace National Park, Guizhou, China

Governments have designated national parks to protect the natural environment against ecosystem destruction and improve individuals’ emotional and recreational life. National parks enhance environment-friendly awareness by conducting ecotourism activities and individuals with environment-friendly awareness are inclined to continue to visit national parks as ecotourism destinations. The New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) is a widely used measure of environmental concern, suitable for measuring the environment-friendly attitude and revisit intention of visitors of national parks. Therefore, the study carried out structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationship between the NEP, national park conservation consciousness and environment-friendly behavioral intention. Based on the results, an implication is presented to induce national parks to cultivate individual environment-friendly awareness and for visitors to pursue sustainable, environment-friendly tourism behavior. The findings indicate that national parks are to expand educational programs and facilities for eco-tourists visiting national parks to maintain a balanced relationship between themselves and nature and have a strong environmental awareness to preserve the natural environment.