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

Abstract

Parksimpacts, COVID-19 has directly and indirectly impacted businesses and industries associated with tourism, which has had substantial impacts to economies (Gössling, Scott, and Hall 2021). Additionally, residents of tourism destinations are assessing the tradeoffs between tourism

Assessing the validity of mobile device data for estimating visitor demographics and visitation patterns in Yellowstone National Park

“…A potential reason for the low correlation was that Yellowstone Arts & Photography Center implemented indoor capacity limits due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 4 while Parkwide Gate Vehicle Counts estimated the visitation of all types of vehicles for the entire national park. Taff et al (2022) reported similar regulations in that capacity limits were enforced in some facilities within five U.S. national parks to keep visitors and staff safe during the pandemic. Therefore, the visitation pattern of one specific attraction may not match the visitation patterns of the entire park and could be influenced by internal factors, such as pandemic-specific policies and associated visitor behaviors (Taff et al, 2022).…”

“…Taff et al (2022) reported similar regulations in that capacity limits were enforced in some facilities within five U.S. national parks to keep visitors and staff safe during the pandemic. Therefore, the visitation pattern of one specific attraction may not match the visitation patterns of the entire park and could be influenced by internal factors, such as pandemic-specific policies and associated visitor behaviors (Taff et al, 2022).…”

“…When researchers utilize mobile device data to estimate temporal visitation patterns, it is necessary to consider other factors that may influence visitor behaviors. For example, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, some service facilities limited the number of visitors, which altered visitor flows and caused significant differences in visitation numbers compared to regular periods (Taff et al, 2022).…”

“…Additionally, the mask requirement policy in all NPS buildings could also reduce visitation volumes (Park, 2021b). Therefore, internal factors, such as seasons or hours of operation and pandemic-specific policies of an attraction, could influence the estimated visitation patterns based on mobile device data (Taff et al, 2022).…”

“…Finally, investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national park visitation with mobile phone data could be a promising direction, given that most onsite visitor survey projects were not possible when quarantine and social distancing policies were in place (Taff et al, 2022).…”