A time series analysis of the impact of recession on national park visitation in the United States

This study employed a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to monthly data of U.S. national park visitation to evaluate the effect of recession on visitation. Five different models with separate macroeconomic measures of recession were first estimated and then compared on their forecasting performance and accuracy. Results indicate that recession, regardless of the macroeconomic measure used, was negatively associated with demand to visit national parks. Survey-based measures of recession that directly captured the consumerʹs confidence on the current and future state of economy outperformed other measures, that relied on secondary economic data, in explaining the impact of recession. Effect of recession varied among various types of visitation, suggesting that certain sub-sectors of national park tourism could experience a disproportionate burden of recession than others. Findings have important implications in understanding and managing the impact of recession on national parks and similar recreation areas.