Monitoring visitors to UK countryside resources The approaches of land and recreation resource management organisations to visitor monitoring

Abstract

Visitor monitoring is an increasingly common and important aspect of the management of informal recreation resources in the UK. A semi-structured interview process was undertaken involving a selection of organisations concerned with management of recreation and conservation resources. The management functions for which data is used are considered and the approaches used to monitor visitors assessed. Perceptions of the value of the information are discussed, and some examples of innovative mechanisms for applying the data are described. Finally, the relationship between the processes of data collection and application are analysed. This paper describes research which follows on from that reported in Cope and Hill (1997. Countryside recreation Network News 5(2), 10,11).