TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the validity of mobile device data for estimating visitor demographics and visitation patterns in Yellowstone National Park
AU - Liang, Yun
AU - Yin, Junjun
AU - Pan, Bing
AU - Lin, Michael S.
AU - Miller, Lauren
AU - Taff, B. Derrick
AU - Chi, Guangqing
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Award # SES-1823633 ), the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Multistate Research Project #PEN04623 (Accession #1013257 ), and the Social Science Research Institute and the Institute of Computational and Data Sciences of Penn State University . The views expressed in this paper are the authors' responsibility and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policy of the National Park Service .
Funding Information:
This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Award # SES-1823633), the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Multistate Research Project #PEN04623 (Accession #1013257), and the Social Science Research Institute and the Institute of Computational and Data Sciences of Penn State University. The views expressed in this paper are the authors' responsibility and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policy of the National Park Service.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/9/1
Y1 - 2022/9/1
N2 - Monitoring visitor demographics and temporal visitation patterns can help national park managers understand their visitors and allocate resources more effectively. Traditional approaches, such as visitor surveys or vehicle counts, are limited by time, space, labor, and financial resources. More recently, mobile device data have been adopted for monitoring visitors in park-related or tourism research. However, few studies validated mobile device data with traditional visitor surveys or count data. Combining mobile device data with the American Community Survey (ACS), this study assessed mobile device data's validity in a national park context with three approaches: Points of Interest (POIs), visitor demographics, and temporal visitation patterns. The results revealed that only half of the POIs inside Yellowstone National Park are valid. Compared to traditional visitor surveys, mobile device data are limited due to platform bias and the exclusion of international visitors, resulting in discrepancies in visitor demographics, such as education and income levels. Conversely, mobile device data have strong correlations with count data regarding monthly and daily visitation patterns. The results suggest that with careful consideration, mobile device data can serve as an additional and complementary source of information to traditional survey data for understanding visitor demographics and temporal visitation patterns.
AB - Monitoring visitor demographics and temporal visitation patterns can help national park managers understand their visitors and allocate resources more effectively. Traditional approaches, such as visitor surveys or vehicle counts, are limited by time, space, labor, and financial resources. More recently, mobile device data have been adopted for monitoring visitors in park-related or tourism research. However, few studies validated mobile device data with traditional visitor surveys or count data. Combining mobile device data with the American Community Survey (ACS), this study assessed mobile device data's validity in a national park context with three approaches: Points of Interest (POIs), visitor demographics, and temporal visitation patterns. The results revealed that only half of the POIs inside Yellowstone National Park are valid. Compared to traditional visitor surveys, mobile device data are limited due to platform bias and the exclusion of international visitors, resulting in discrepancies in visitor demographics, such as education and income levels. Conversely, mobile device data have strong correlations with count data regarding monthly and daily visitation patterns. The results suggest that with careful consideration, mobile device data can serve as an additional and complementary source of information to traditional survey data for understanding visitor demographics and temporal visitation patterns.
KW - Mobile device data
KW - National park
KW - Temporal visitation patterns
KW - Visitor demographics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132424002&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115410
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115410
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 35751247
AN - SCOPUS:85132424002
SN - 0301-4797
VL - 317
JO - Journal of Environmental Management
JF - Journal of Environmental Management
M1 - 115410
ER -