How “National” are the Participation and Use Patterns of National Park Visitors?

Abstract

National parks are commonly conceived as serving a stereotyped role within tourism-recreation delivery systems. They are often thought of as being destination parks that visitors drive more than a day to reach and spend several days visiting. National parks are also stereotyped as serving a national and international audience, in pursuit of tourism activities. Ten major U. S. national parks were examined to determine if the activites participated in, the reasons for pursuing the activities, and visitor use patterns, agreed with the stereotyped role of national parks. Results indicated that two general categories of parks exist: regional parks for specialized publics and the commonly conceived national parks for generalized publics.