The Outdoor Renaissance: Assessing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic upon Outdoor Recreation Visitation, Behaviors, and Decision-Making in New England’s National Forests

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed outdoor recreation. As a result of the pandemic, parks and protected areas around the world have witnessed dramatic increases in recreation visitation. While various studies have examined this premise, this is one of the first to examine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic upon recreation visitation across an entire parks and protected areas system in New England, utilizing both spatial and temporal scales. Study findings provide empirical evidence to inform future research and theory related to the social-ecological systems and recreation opportunity spectrum frameworks. A unique combination of primary, secondary, and geospatial data was used to explore recreation visitors’ decision-making, behaviors, and visitation trends during the pandemic. Inferential and regression analyses suggest overall recreation visitation increased by ∼61% (2+ million additional site visits) during the summer of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Moreover, significant changes in visitation, site, and geo-spatial characteristics were observed for both in-state and out-of-state visitors during the pandemic. This research validates the influence of the pandemic upon parks and protected areas in the United States.

Keywords:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• parks and protected areas
• recreation visitation
• social-ecological systems
• visitor behaviors
• visitor decision-making

Acknowledgements

The participation from WMNF and GMNF visitors was invaluable for the completion of this research. Additionally, the authors would like to acknowledge the original peoples who inhabited the WMNF and GMNF including the Abenaki, Mohican, Malecite, Passamaquoddy, and Penacook peoples.

Disclosure statement

All authors agree that there are no financial or personal interests, and no beliefs that could affect their objectivity.

Author contributions

Each author made an individual contribution to this manuscript. All authors have approved the final manuscript. All authors warrant that the article is the authors' original work and hasn't received prior publication.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the USDA Forest Service under grant numbers 19-CS-11092000-012 and 19-CS-11092200-017. All study design, data collection, analyses, interpretation, and decisions to submit this article for publication were made by the University of New Hampshire Department of Recreation Management and Policy.