Geospatial Analytics for Park & Protected Land Visitor Reservation Data

Abstract

Globally, parks and protected lands (PPL) receive about 8 billion visits annually (Center for Responsible Travel, 2016). The United Nations Environment Programme predicts that ecotourism, nature, heritage, cultural and "soft adventure" tourism will grow rapidly over the next two decades, with global spending on ecotourism expected to increase at a higher rate than the tourism industry as a whole (United Nations Environment Programme, 2011). Therefore, it is increasingly important that PPLs are managed for both the enjoyment of visitors and the protection of natural resources. These sometimes antithetical objectives require managers to strike a balance between visitor impacts and visitor experiences. In this chapter, PPL refers to any natural area that supports recreational tourism on publicly managed land. Reserving overnight space or access within PPLs helps improve visitor experiences within these natural settings. PPL reservation systems across the globe collect transactional data for reservations at campsites and day-use facilities, as well as permits for the use of trails and backcountry areas. This record of visitation contains information about both destination usage (from the supply side) and visitor behavior (the demand population) (Supak, Brothers, Bohnenstiehl, & Devine, 2015). Geospatial analysis and geovisualizations produced from these data can be used to promote PPL usage and facilitate sustainable visitor experiences; however, PPL reservation databases are rarely leveraged with these goals in mind (Supak et al., 2015). At the end of the 1990s, the tourism literature started to acknowledge the benefits of using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to conduct geospatial analytics and