Understanding visitor attitudes towards the timed-entry reservation system in Rocky Mountain National Park: Contemporary managed access as a social-ecological system

Park and protected area (PPAs) management is often characterized by tightly interdependent social, ecological, and managerial dimensions that have increasingly been conceptualized as social-ecological systems (SES) to understand the complex interrelationships between these dimensions. Current trends of increasing visitation in U.S. National Parks have accentuated the complex interactions between the amount of recreation use, the quality of the visitor experience, ecological resource conditions, and the burden on management and the capacity of the setting. In order to manage visitor use in balance with desired social and ecological conditions and allocate opportunities for use in an equitable manner, several U.S. National Parks including Acadia (ME), Arches (UT), Glacier (MT), Rocky Mountain (CO), Shenandoah (VA), Yosemite (CA), and Zion (UT) are using advance-reservation or managed-access reservation systems. Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) implemented a Timed-Entry Reservation System (TEPS) which required visitors to place an online reservation for park access and allocated a fixed number of reservations per daily time period. RMNP managers employed the park's transportation system to target desired conditions and consequently moderate the flow of vehicles entering the park. We developed an email-based survey instrument to understand visitors' evaluations of their experience under the TEPS system and elicited their attitudes towards use-limiting strategies like TEPS. Our analysis found 78% of respondents reflected favorably on the TEPS managed-access park experience, although these attitudes are often value-laden and involve expectations about the conditions they experience. Our results provide a contemporary perspective on the assumptions in the rationing and allocation literature regarding the barriers and acceptability of these techniques for managing visitor use. Finally, we offer some insights and considerations from this analysis for managers considering similar managed-access strategies.

Management implications

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  Conceptualizing a national park and associated managed-access process social-ecological systems illustrates connections between the visitor use and ecological dimensions of protected areas.

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  Managed-access reservations systems are a tool for management to balance recreation use alongside the resource conservation and management goals for the setting.

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  This research reveals that Rocky Mountain National Park visitors are generally supportive of managed-access strategies, particularly for the safety of their experience and the sustainable management of ecological resource conditions for future generations' enjoyment.