Crowding in Germany’s national parks: the case of the low mountain range Saxon Switzerland National Park

Abstract

Every year 1.7 million people visit the Saxon Switzerland National Park, resulting in a very high visitor density, especially in the western parts of the national park. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in 2011 (n = 312), which investigated the perception of crowding, influencing factors and displacement effects. Overall, nearly one third of the visitors (31.3%) felt crowded, with a maximum of 74.4% at the Bastei rock, a popular spot within the park. Using a logistic regression, the number of perceived encounters, plus motives and expectations were found to be the key factors to influence the perception of crowding. Nearly half of the visitors (48.7%) already act or plan to act on crowding, choosing temporal and spatial displacement strategies in equal measure.

Protected Areas in an era of global–local change

“…Also, crowding is seen as a more dominant phenomenon at specific PA locations with its perception depending not only on the number of encounters but also on the expectations of use levels and the motivation of the visitors seeking a specific nature experience. New ways to establish an effective communication strategy as part of a good visitor management system have to be found (Schamel & Job, 2013). Of critical importance is how emerging markets will behave with respect to nature-based tourism demand.…”

A demographic perspective on the spatial behaviour of hikers in mountain areas: the example of Berchtesgaden

“…However, spatial displacement in reaction to an increased perception of crowding, as seen in other recreational areas (Schamel & Job 2013), could counteract the concentration of visitors caused by demographic change.…”

Touristische Aktionsräume und die Wahrnehmung von Crowding

“…die Wahrnehmung von Crowding angesehen (Stokols, 1972, S. 275). Die Wahrnehmung ist demnach eine psychologische Bewertung der Anzahl der Raumnutzer während des touristischen Erlebnisses (Shelby et al, 1989) oder anders ausgedrückt: Bei der Wahrnehmung von Crowding handelt es sich um ein sozio-psychisches Konstrukt (Neuts et al, 2012, S. 651 Bryon & Neuts, 2008;Popp, 2012;Schamel & Job, 2014) des Tourismus in Naturräumen zumeist kein Problem darstellt, gestaltet sich im städtischen Raum deutlich komplexer und wird als eine der Schwierigkeiten beim Übertrag der Erkenntnisse aus der Crowdingforschung in einen städtischen Kontext gesehen (Popp, 2012, S. 53). Weitere Besonderheiten im städtischen Raum bestehen in der Multioptionalität der Städte und der Tatsache, dass es auch ein sogenanntes "good crowding" (Wickham & Kerstetter, 2000, S. 169) geben kann (Popp, 2012, S. 53).…”