Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park

1. Visitor Use of Acadia National Park

1Visitor Use of Acadia National Park Who are park visitors? Where are they from? Why do they visit the national parks? What do they do in the parks? What do visitors think are the most important management issues in the national parks? Visitor Services Project (vsp) studies are designed to help answer these and related questions. The vsp is a research program administered by the National Park Service (nps) for the purpose of providing useable knowledge about visitors. The vsp began in 1982 when the nps recognized the need to learn more about visitors and their opinions. The vsp works with park staffs to conduct baseline surveys of visitors. Survey questionnaires include “core questions” (those common to all vsp surveys), “common questions” (frequently asked questions), and “customized questions” (questions specifically designed to meet the needs of individual parks). vsp studies provide a snapshot of the visitor population in a park during a seven to ten day study period. Nearly two hundred vsp studies have been conducted in over 150 units of the national park system including Acadia National Park. This chapter reports selected findings from that study. STUDY METHODS The questionnaire for this visitor survey was designed using a standard format that was developed in previous vsp studies. Interviews were conducted with and questionnaires were distributed to a sample of visitors who arrived at Acadia during the peak summer use season. Visitors were sampled at  This chapter is an edited version of the following report: Margaret Littlejohn, Acadia National Park Visitor Study: Summer 1999, U.S. National Park Service Visitor Services Project Report 108 (Moscow: University of Idaho, Cooperative Park Studies Unit, 1999). I N D I C A T O R S A N D S T A N D A R D S O F Q U A L I T Y  locations throughout the park, based on the recommendations of park staff. Visitor groups were greeted, briefly introduced to the purpose of the study, and asked to participate. If visitors agreed, a brief interview was used to determine group size, group type, and the age of the adult who would complete the questionnaire. This individual was given a questionnaire and was asked his or her name, address, and telephone number for the later mailing of a reminder thank-you postcard. Visitor groups were asked to complete the questionnaire during or after their visit and then return it by mail. Two weeks following the survey, a reminder thank-you postcard was mailed to all participants. Replacement questionnaires were mailed to participants who had not returned their questionnaires four weeks after the survey. Eight weeks after the survey, replacement questionnaires were mailed to visitors who still had not returned their questionnaires. A total of 1,312 visitor groups were contacted, and 1,255 of these groups (96 percent) accepted questionnaires. Questionnaires were completed and returned by 1,065 visitor groups, resulting in an 85 percent response rate. STUDY FINDINGS Visitor group sizes ranged from one person to 45 people. Thirty-nine percent of visitor groups consisted of two people, while another 37 percent were people in groups of three or four. Seventy-one percent of visitor groups were made up of family members. Two percent of the visitor groups at Acadia were guided tour groups. The most common visitor age group was 36 to 55 years (42 percent) and another 23 percent of visitors were 15 years old or younger. Forty-seven percent of respondents were making their first visit to the park while 52 percent had visited the park previously. International visitors to Acadia comprised 5 percent of total visitation. The countries most often represented were Canada (29 percent), England (16 percent) and Israel (9 percent). The largest proportions of United States visitors were from Massachusetts (14 percent), New York (12 percent), Pennsylvania (11 percent), and Maine (10 percent). Smaller proportions of U.S. visitors came from another thirty-nine states and Washington, D.C. Almost half of visitor groups spent between one and three days on mdi. Another 18 percent spent eight or more days on mdi. Four percent of V I S I T O R U S E O F A C A D I A N A T I O N A L P A R K  the groups spent less than a day on the island. Visitor groups were also asked how much time they spent at Acadia. Over half (58...