Visitor Travel Research Articles

The transient nature of concentrated use at a national park: A spatiotemporal investigation into visitor behavior

Advances in GPS technology have facilitated efficient collection of spatiotemporal data of visitor travel patterns. However, analyses of these data has evolved at a slower rate. In particular, past analyses typically have not analyzed temporal variations to understand how visitor travel patterns change with time. It is necessary to understand spatial variations of temporally segmented data to gain insight into the dynamic nature of visitor behavior, because change is a function of time. Therefore, this manuscript focuses on elements of this critical co-analysis and advocates for incorporating richer temporal analysis at various scales to gain a fuller understanding of visitor travel patterns. The researchers guided this work using the concept of “time-geography” to evaluate day-visitors’ travel patterns at Cumberland Island National Seashore. Data were collected using GPS data loggers and analyzed by conducting kernel density analyses of temporally-segmented data, and then visitors’ temporal allocation within seven management zones were compared using a One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with a Bonferroni Post Hoc test. Results reveal that visitor use at Cumberland Island is heavily concentrated, transient, and are dependent on location of attraction sites as a function of time from ferry disembarkment. The analysis also identified the most frequented management zones and the length of stay within each zone. These methods and results contribute an illustrative example to the importance of analyzing temporal patterns in conjunction with spatial patterns. Lastly, this research revealed the punctuated rhythm of visitor spatiotemporal behavior when stringently constrained by time.

PERSEPSI PENGUNJUNG TERHADAP WISATA ALAM DI CAMP GRANIT TAMAN NASIONAL BUKIT TIGAPULUH

Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park (TNBT) became a representative of lowland tropical rain forests on the island of Sumatra because it has high aesthetic value and an interesting diversity of flora and fauna, TNBT ecosystem has the potential to be developed as a natural tourist attraction. Camp Granit's nature tourism has interesting objects, both natural and artificial. The purpose of this research was to determine visitor perceptions and visitor's travel motives towards nature tourism at Camp Granit TNBT. The information were collected by field observations with an inventory of natural attractions, using a questionnaire technique. This research used quantitative descriptive methods. The results of this research showed that Camp Granit's nature tourism has a very attractive tourist environment, the level of comfort when traveling is classified as very comfortable and the level of tourist satisfaction is classified as very satisfied and on the travel motives of visitors to Camp Granit nature tourism TNBT with a recreational or vacation destination of 68.60%.

Grid Analysis of Visitor Travel Patterns in a Dispersed Outdoor Recreation Setting

Understanding visitor travel patterns within parks and protected areas has continually been recognized as beneficial for managers. This information can identify high-use areas and locations of potential conflicts. However, visitor travel patterns can be difficult to understand in parks and protected areas that lack organizational infrastructure, such as trails, roads, or signs (e.g., open deserts and marine environments). In this article, we demonstrate a digital grid analysis of travel patterns at the Bonneville Salt Flats Special Recreation Management Area, Utah, a vast desert expanse where trails, roads, or wayfinding signs do not exist and there is no vehicular speed limit. Data were collected using GPS data loggers and analyzed using ArcGIS. We first conducted spatial descriptive analysis to understand mean center point, median center point, directional distribution, and central line feature. Mean center point and median center point were reported in decimal degrees, which can be inputted into any smartphone or GPS unit for navigation. Using ArcMap, we designed a digital grid that overlaid the study site. The grid provided insight into spatial variations of visitor use and vehicle speeds. Using hot spot analysis, we determined areas where high use and high vehicle speeds were coinciding, which informed a spatial grouping analysis to identify areas for future monitoring. Monitoring areas are reported using navigation directions for easy location. We identified two areas where high use and high vehicle speeds coincide. Both of these areas are near the end of the access road, which suggests some visitors drive fast immediately upon entering the Bonneville Salt Flats. This finding led us to recommend managers put a speed limit zone near the access road for visitor safety. The findings of this study demonstrate the utility of grid analysis for advancing understanding of spatial variations, visitor travel patterns, and identifying priority areas to monitor in a dispersed recreation environment.

Factors influencing visitor travel to festivals: challenges in encouraging sustainable travel

This paper examines how visitor travel-mode choices to festivals are formed and how sustainable travel could be encouraged. The empirical analysis focuses on Hay Festival of Literature and Arts using semi-structured interviews with visitors. Themes and topics explored through the interviews were informed by theories of travel behaviour. Findings highlight a range of external and internal factors influencing visitor travel-mode choices, which are closely interrelated. External factors reflect environmental elements related to the location and type of overnight accommodation, festival location, travel time and quality of public transport services. Internal factors include autonomy in travelling different routes and times, travelling with young children, cost of travel and physical-health and mobility issues. An additional internal factor was routine use of the car and extension of this behaviour when travelling to the festival. Based on the consolidation of the empirical findings, this paper also proposes a new theoretical framework for capturing a more comprehensive understanding of event related travel decisions. To encourage further sustainable travel, festival organisers and policy makers should not only focus exclusively on travel time and cost but consider a wider array of factors that are unique to festivals and their geographic locations.

Strategic decision making about travel during disease outbreaks: a game theoretical approach.

Visitors can play an important role in the spread of infections. Here, we incorporate an epidemic model into a game theoretical framework to investigate the effects of travel strategies on infection control. Potential visitors must decide whether to travel to a destination that is at risk of infectious disease outbreaks. We compare the individually optimal (Nash equilibrium) strategy to the group optimal strategy that maximizes the overall population utility. Economic epidemiological models often find that individual and group optimal strategies are very different. By contrast, we find perfect agreement between individual and group optimal strategies across a wide parameter regime. For more limited regimes where disagreement does occur, the disagreement is (i) generally very extreme; (ii) highly sensitive to small changes in infection transmissibility and visitor costs/benefits; and (iii) can manifest either in a higher travel volume for individual optimal than group optimal strategies, or vice versa. The simulations show qualitative agreement with the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Beijing, China. We conclude that a conflict between individual and group optimal visitor travel strategies during outbreaks may not generally be a problem, although extreme differences could emerge suddenly under certain changes in economic and epidemiological conditions.

Defining sustainable transport in rural tourism: experiences from the New Forest

ABSTRACTTransport policy agendas have long sought to bring about more sustainable transport at tourism destinations. Whilst there are examples of successes, it remains unclear what inroads have been made towards creating a sustainable transport future. Policy directions have evolved over a number of years and in many tourism destination contexts, it is far from clear what a desirable transport future looks like. When translated to implementation, the aims of initiatives can be unclear and baseline measures inconsistent, making success difficult to judge. This paper analyses how sustainable travel has been implemented in practice at a destination level. The focus is rural tourism and data are derived from a specific case, the New Forest National Park, UK, where a wide range of transport initiatives have been implemented since the Park's designation in 2005. The study adopts a social practice theory perspective. Data are derived from a visitor survey, interviews and observations. It finds there is scope to improve sustainable transport provision at destinations through understanding visitor practices, but limited scope to influence meanings associated with visitor travel and travel skills. Policy meets the needs of some visitors more than others.

Measuring and managing the environmental impact of festivals: the contribution of the Ecological Footprint

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses the contribution of the Ecological Footprint as a method for estimating the environmental impact of festivals. It responds to calls for more rigorous methods to assess the environmental impacts of festivals, and contributes towards providing festival organisers and policy-makers with a more balanced evaluation of their outcomes. This paper focuses on the 2012 Hay Festival of Literature and Arts (Wales, United Kingdom), and describes how the Ecological Footprint was used to calculate the environmental impact of its visitors. It also considers the potential value of the Ecological Footprint as a method for evaluating alternative strategies designed to improve the environmental sustainability of festivals. The paper demonstrates that Ecological Footprint analysis can provide valuable information for festival organisers and policy-makers on factors influencing the scale of a festivals’ environmental impact, and the types of strategies needed to reduce the effect of visitor travel.

Driving pro-environmental change in tourist destinations: encouraging sustainable travel in National Parks via partnership project creation and implementation

ABSTRACT This paper explores a key challenge in introducing more sustainable transport practices at destinations: achieving modal shift in visitor travel from cars to physically active or public transport to reduce tourism's environmental impacts. It centres on using partnership led projects bringing together the many public and private sector organisations involved, to drive destination change and development. To date, research has centred on pro-environmental change for individuals and individual organisations: little is known about the mechanisms of pro-environmental change via complex multi-partner organisations. The paper reports research into the processes involved in successful projects to provide alternatives to car travel in three UK National Parks by using partnerships to obtain funding and implement change. Based on case studies informed by in-depth interviews with key stakeholders involved in pro-environmental change implementation, narratives are analysed to explain the change process, and mapped against existing literature and theories of change. Conclusions show the role of inspired individuals, supportive senior management, strong governance, better visitor experiences and, most significantly, communication and communication of the benefits of change to stakeholders. The research suggests why and how change occurs in partnerships, contributes to better theories of change and offers guidance on understanding and implementing change processes worldwide.

Travel Model Blind Spots: Importance of Understanding Special Markets Related to Visitors

In many small and medium-sized communities, the need to reflect the unique characteristics of travel by special markets is an important consideration. Visitor travel is a special market for many communities that enjoy the benefits of being a destination for visitors from outside the region. Visitor travel can affect the transportation system in a community as well as benefiting the economy. Visitor travel is often not modeled explicitly because of the cost associated with collecting behaviorally rich survey data to support model development. This paper presents a low-cost option for collecting travel behavior data for special markets through the administration of a small-sample intercept survey of persons staying in recreational vehicle (RV) campgrounds in the French Broad River region of North Carolina. Analysis of the survey data showed that travel by these surveyed RV households was different from both retired and seasonal part-time resident households, captured in the region’s household travel survey. Development of a special market model to address travel by RV visitors in the region is also discussed.

Impact of Taiwan open policy on Chinese tourist satisfaction

The Taiwan government has imposed a daily visitation quota with strict regulations on Chinese visitor travel modes, length of stay, and visa authorisations since July 2008. This highly controlled scheme was an attempt to maintain service quality over security and political considerations. The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth analysis regarding the Chinese tourist satisfaction over time under different travel modes. The results indicated that package tour (PT) visitors generally gave higher satisfaction scores than free and independent travel visitors. However, PT visitors demonstrated a decreased level of satisfaction on their tour arrangements of hotels, meals, and itineraries. Addressing safety and environmental issues is the priority task in order to provide quality travel services.

Nilai Objek Wisata Air Terjun Way Lalaan Provinsi Lampung Dengan Metode Biaya Perjalanan (Travel Cost)

Attraction Waterfall Way Lalaan is one form of environmental services are less developed but has significant economic potential if managed properly. It is therefore necessary to study with the aim of determining the value of the waterfall attraction Way Lalaan visitor characteristics and determine the effect on travel expenses. Benefits of the research results are used as consideration in future management of this attraction. The study was conducted in March-April 2013 with as many as 96 respondents with direct interviews with travel costs were proxied visitors. Determination results of visitor travel expenses will be tested using multiple linear analysis with Minitab 16 software.The results showed the cost of travel for visitors Rp.16.284.500/orang/kali visit. The average cost of a trip Rp.203.104 person / visit. Recreational value of Rp. 487 449 600/year. Variables outside the province, age and marital status simultaneously have a real influence on the cost of the trip. The value of the standard deviation (S) is Rp.151.589. The amount of influence the dependent variables simultaneously (R-Sq) was 61.9% and R-Sq (adj) which means the amount fluctuates depending on the variables influence the correlation of independent variables were added to a dependent variable is equal to 54.8%, while 45.2 % influenced by other variables.

Why destination visitor travel planning falls between the cracks

Planning for visitor travel within a destination area presents an obvious opportunity to reduce the environmental impact of tourism, while increasing quality of experience and choice for the tourist and benefiting local residents and businesses. Yet, with a few exceptions, comprehensive planning is rarely undertaken by destination managers and initiatives tend to be isolated and fragmented. Drawing on their extensive knowledge of rural destinations in the UK, the authors discuss the types of scheme which can enhance the visitor experience while bringing local and global environmental benefits. They conclude that the tourism industry's structure, dwindling public funding and the difficulties of aligning multiple agencies to a common purpose prevent the strategic planning necessary for integrated visitor travel planning with a failure to reap the potential environmental, economic and social rewards.

Representing uncertainty in a spatial invasion model that incorporates human-mediated dispersal

Most modes of human-mediated dispersal of invasive species are directional and vector-based. Classical spatial spread models usually depend on probabilistic dispersal kernels that emphasize distance over direction and have limited ability to depict rare but influential long-distance dispersal events. These aspects are problematic if such models are used to estimate invasion risk. Alternatively, a geographic network model may be better at estimating the typically low likelihoods associated with human-mediated dispersal events, but it should also provide a reasonable account of uncertainties that could affect perception of its risk estimates. We developed a network model that assesses the likelihood of dispersal of invasive forest pests in camper-transported firewood in North America. We built the model using data from the U.S. National Recreation Reservation Service, which document visitor travel between populated places and federal campgrounds across the U.S. and Canada. The study area is depicted as a set of coarse-resolution map units. Based on repeated simulations, the model estimates the probability that each unit is a possible origin and destination for firewood-facilitated forest pest invasions. We generated output maps that summarise, for each U.S. state and Canadian province, where (outside the state or province) a camper-transported forest pest likely originated. Treating these output maps as a set of baseline scenarios, we explored the sensitivity of these “origin risk” estimates to additive and multiplicative errors in the probabilities of pest transmission between locations, as well as random changes in the structure of the underlying travel network. We found the patterns of change in the origin risk estimates due to these alterations to be consistent across all states and provinces. This indicates that the network model behaves predictably in the presence of uncertainties, allowing future work to focus on closing knowledge gaps or more sophisticated treatments of the impact of uncertainty on model outputs.

Applying Travel Pattern Data to Destination Development and Marketing Decisions

This study applied empirical visitor travel pattern data to aid a destination marketing and management organization in Jackson County, North Carolina, USA, a rural mountainous tourism-dependent location. Findings revealed that 44.7% of respondents employed an intra-destination base camp model. Furthermore base campers spent the most number of nights in the area making them potentially the most lucrative target market. However, most base campers stayed in neighboring counties and day tripped to Jackson County, lessening the destination's earning potential. Further analyses suggested development and marketing collaboration opportunities and new ideas for promotional themes.

Analysis on Service Engineering Innovation of Tourism Based on Process Metaphysics

The travel service quality means that the tourist enterprise can meet visitor's level of enjoying tourist service. The quality of travel service is essential for the development of tourist industry. It is an important decisive factor of the visitor's travel destination. Therefore, carrying out tourist service engineering innovation, improving travel service engineering is very elasticity to the development of tourist industry. This article uses process metaphysics to analyze tourist service engineering innovation process in order to promote the further development of tourist industry.

Environmental aspects of health care in the Grampian NHS region and the place of telehealth.

Detailed information about the composition of the carbon footprint of the NHS in the Grampian health region, and in Scotland generally, is not available at present. Based on the limited information available, our best guess is that travel emissions in Grampian are substantial, perhaps 49,000 tonnes CO2 per year. This is equivalent to 233 million km of car travel per year. A well-established telemedicine network in the Grampian region, which saves over 2000 patient journeys a year from community hospitals, avoids about 260,000 km travel per year, or about 59 tonnes CO2 per year. Therefore using telehealth as it has been used historically (primarily to facilitate hospital-to-hospital interactions) seems unlikely to have a major environmental impact – although of course there may be other good reasons for persevering with conventional telehealth. On the other hand, telehealth might be useful in reducing staff travel and to a lesser extent, visitor travel. It looks particularly promising for reducing outpatient travel, where substantial carbon savings might be made by reconfiguring the way that certain services are provided.

An Econometric Analysis of the Effects of Tourism Growth on Municipal Revenues and Expenditures

The major source of change in the tourism industry of New London County, Connecticut, over the past one and a half decades has been the dramatic influx of visitors to the county's two American Indian casinos: Foxwoods, opened in 1992, and Mohegan Sun, opened in 1996. This study seeks reasonable estimates of municipal-level revenues and expenditures related to tourism growth during 1993–2002, for each of the 21 municipalities in the county. The authors conduct an econometric analysis to separate three factors with different spatial impacts on revenues and expenditures: those due to the residential locations of new tourism employees, those due to the business location of new tourism enterprises and those due to the pattern of increased traffic caused by new visitor travel.

Using the car in a fragile rural tourist destination: a social representations perspective

The visitor experience of place is inextricably linked to our ability to travel around an area at will, yet this mobility creates many problems especially in scenic rural areas of the UK. The study presented here attempts to unravel visitors’ experiences of mobility using Moscovici’s social representations approach. Travel diaries were employed to explore visitors’ transport choices and mobility patterns during the peak season in Purbeck, Dorset, UK. Analysis focuses on how such patterns reflect a social representation of mobility and the implications this has for visitor travel at destinations.

The challenges of diverse visitor perceptions: rail policy and sustainable transport at the resort destination

This paper examines the implications for future railway policy for sustainable transport access at tourism destinations in the South West of England, drawing on a case study of the St Ives Bay Line in Cornwall. The paper considers the diversity of passenger behaviour and attitudes amongst tourist and leisure visitors. It sets the research findings in the context of future railway policy, specifically Community Rail Development and the Greater Western Franchise for South West England. In doing so it questions whether current transport policies are sufficient in scope to address the complexities of visitor travel on such branch lines.

A Behavioral Assessment of Tourism Transportation Options for Reducing Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gases

This article outlines an approach for examining tourist-destination travel mode choices and forecasting the resulting environmental impact of those selections. Using the tourism destination of Whistler, British Columbia, as a case study, the article initially describes a discrete-choice experiment (DCE) used to estimate tourist mode-choice behavior under different transportation-planning scenarios. It then incorporates the DCE findings into a technical, bottom-up energy-use model to create behaviorally shaped estimates of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The findings suggest that innovative transportation-management strategies can encourage tourists to use public-transit modes rather than private or rental vehicles to access tourism destinations. The modal shifts caused by these initiatives can significantly affect the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated with land-based visitor travel. The findings contribute to the growing theoretical and applied strategies needed to inform the creation of more sustainable forms of tourism-destination development.