Date of Award

Fall 12-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Human Movement Sciences

Program/Concentration

Park, Recreation and Tourism Studies

Committee Director

Chris A. B. Zajchowski

Committee Member

Jessica Fefer

Committee Member

Lindsay Usher

Abstract

Visitors have different motivations associated with parks and protected areas, and the people who run those areas are also different from visitors due to their unique positions. This is especially true for the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail (POHE), where stakeholders – ranging from park managers and Department of Transportation planners to volunteers of nonprofits and historical societies collaborate to manage sections along the 822-mile extent of the trail. Building on previous work itemizing the diversity of motivations for visitation to parks and protected areas, this study investigates similarities and differences in stakeholder and manager Recreation Experience Preferences by clustering responses gathered from a Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) survey sent to stakeholders and collected from visitors onsite in 2021. Analysis using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and comparison of the demographic and visitor use characteristics associated with these two groups allows stakeholders to understand their demographic similarities and use differences to the visitors, as well as leverage a metric to understand how motivations change over time as demographics and visitor use patterns change. This tool also reinforces the wide range of motivations to this culturally and geographically diverse trail while upholding previous research in the field.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/8g2y-k169

ISBN

9798371979117

ORCID

0000-0002-6042-5612

Download

Share

COinS