Monitoring Visitor Flows in Destinations: The Case of Multiple-Use Hiking Trails in Grand Canyon National Park

Abstract

Monitoring trail traffic in popular destinations plays essential roles in governing management actions and assessing effectiveness of operations. In varying degrees, the amount of visitor use is often a key factor linked to extent and type of impacts, maintenance schedules, budget and resource allocations, and when compiled across a period of time, is used to inform planning scenarios and forecast future demand. This study uses direct observation of visitor volume to calibrate counts from infrared technology on multiple-use trails at Grand Canyon National Park during May to October 2004. A calibration procedure was developed to better reflect variability in the proportion of exiting day hikers across time of the day and the trail of use within Grand Canyon National Park. The calibrated exit proportion models had good fits with low mean absolute deviations where the larger the traffic volume the better fit. This finding was replicated across the trails of study, albeit using an explicit calibration model developed for each trail.