Adapting to change: Visitor patterns in national parks across the pandemic timeline

作者：Dehui Christina Geng, Mingze Chen, Harry Seely, Howie W. Harshaw, Christopher Gaston, Wanli Wu, Guangyu Wang · 发表于：Trees Forests and People · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.tfp.2025.100874 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Urban Green Space and Health、Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research、Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management

• COVID-19 reshaped forest-based visitor behaviour, creating lasting new normal trend. • Remote forest-immersive activities surged while popular routes saw less traffic. • Seasonal and spatial patterns decentralized, with more between-park movement. • Health crises highlight trees and forests role in supporting people’s health. • We offer insights for park management amid COVID-19′s new normal and future crises. The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially impacted visitor behaviour and forest tourism management, introducing new visitor patterns that persist in the post-COVID-19 period. As critical components of national parks, forests and tree-dominated natural environments have gained renewed attention for their role in promoting mental and physical health during public health crises. This study analysed pandemic-induced shifts in visitor activity and movement patterns from a temporal-spatial perspective in Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks using social media big data from pre, peri , and post COVID-19. Temporal analysis of social media posts aligned with official park attendance trends (2019–2023), validating big data as a reliable indicator. Results show a long-term behaviour shift toward nature-immersive activities in remote and forested wilderness areas, reduced traffics on historically popular routes, and emerging between-park connectivity. Seasonal and spatial visitation patterns became less centralised, increasing conservation pressures in ecologically sensi...