National parks, nature-based tourism and demographic change in Germany: potential effects on visitor numbers, visitor structures and spatial and temporal movement patterns

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hubert Job
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 250007070

The national parks and its dual objectives of protecting the large-scale ecological processes and providing the recreational opportunities for visitors, requires a purposeful management of the visitor flows. To be successful, visitor management strategies must be tailored to the changing needs of different visitors groups. One major trend affecting the demand for outdoor recreation in Germany, will be the demographic change. The aim of this research is twofold. The first aim is to forecast the effects of the demographic change on the visitor number of the 14 German national parks. This forecast is based on the catchment area of the national parks, the population projection of the source regions and of basic parameters, describing the travel behavior, derived from the longitudinal data of the 'Reiseanalyse'. In a second step, the spatial and temporal behavior of visitors is investigated in Berchtesgaden national park, to give a first estimate on how this behavior of visitors may alter due to the demographic change. Therefore it is analyzed, if there are any differences between different age groups and if any thresholds can be identified, where significant changes in the usage patterns occur. Temporal and spatial behavior is recorded with the help of GPS-loggers, while personal and visit characteristics are obtained through questionnaires. These characteristics, especially the perception of constraints to outdoor recreation, are analyzed to see how far age-related differences exist and what influence they have on spatial behavior. The benefits of the methods of GPS-tracking and GIS-analysis, in the context of outdoor recreation research, are reflected in numerous applications in recent years. The methodological objective of the intended research is to combine the existing procedures and transfer them to a mountain context, as well as to show some possibilities of automation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants