US national park visitor experiences during COVID-19: Data from Acadia, Glacier, Grand Teton, Shenandoah, and Yellowstone National Parks

Abstract

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.