Visitor monitoring in Finnish national parks and ASTA visitor information system Liisa Kajala, Senior Advisor Metsähallitus, Natural Heritage Services Workshop – Visitor Monitoring in National Parks th Gardemoen Airport, October 17 , 2013 Contents of the Presentation • Protected areas in Finland • Development of visitor monitoring and information system in Finland and current practices • Use of visitor information • Future development Organisation of Metsähallitus 3 Performance setting and Steering of Natural Heritage Services 4 Natural Heritage services´ finances in 2012 NHS´activities are largely financed from the national government budget. Additional funding is obtained from EU programmes, fees paid for hunting and fishing permits, rents etc.. 5 NHS manages all the state-owned PAs • 37 national parks Forest land in managed forests • 19 strict nature reserves Poorly productive land • 7 national hiking areas • 12 wilderness areas Protected areas (NHS) • almost 500 other PAs • public water areas Public water areas (NHS) Altogether over 7 million hectares, 18% of Finland’s surface area 6 Finland´s National Parks • a total of 37 national parks • 9 790 km2 • 2,1 million visits in 2012 7 Visitor Centres • guidance for hikers and other customer service • exhibitions and audiovisual shows • interpretation and environmental education • 887 700 visits Organisation of National Heritage Services 1.1.2012 9 Contents of the Presentation • Protected areas in Finland • Development of visitor monitoring and information system in Finland and current practices • Use of visitor information • Future development Why visitor monitoring in protected areas? “Any phenomenon that is not measured and reported does not exist politically. Governments, societies, communities and individuals place more value on that which is documented.“ 11 Development of outdoor recreation data base systems in NHS Year Action 2000 Standardised surveys start and the first manual on visitor monitoring was published in Finland (FFRI=METLA & NHS) 2002 MMV I (Austria) 2004 MMV II (Finland), Reiska GIS was launched in NHS 2005 Nordic and Baltic Project on Developing Visitor Monitoring Methodology 2006 MMV III (Switzerland), ASTA database was launched in NHS 2007 Manual of Visitor Monitoring in Nature Areas was published in Nordic and Baltic countries 2008 MMV IV (Italy), ASTA database was sold to Estonia (RMK ) 2010 MMV V (Netherlands), first economic impacts of park visitation report was published in Finland (FFRI & NHS) 2011 Customer segmentation based on motivations (UEF & NHS) 2012 MMV VI (Sweden) 12 2013 Questions on experienced health and wellbeing benefits (multiple research organisations); ASTA information to SASS International cooperation in developing visitor monitoring methodology The main focus is on practical matters: • how to carry out visitor counting and visitor surveys, • how to report the results and • how to make use of the information obtained. The manual (TemaNord 2007:534 ) includes • guidelines, • recommendations, • tips and examples on visitor monitoring methodologies 13 The project • Nordic-Baltic Workshop in June 2004 in Rovaniemi, Finland − common project to develop Nordic and Baltic guidelines for visitor monitoring • Projects 2005 and 2006-2007 • Funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers and Naturvårdsverket • Implementation by a project group that consisted of representatives of both management and research organisations in the Nordic and Baltic countries. • project management in Metsähallitus workshop in November 2009 in Rovaniemi 14 How has the manual been utilised? • Translations into Swedish, Estonian, Finnish and partly into Norwegian (the model questions, app .4) • Adopting the manual into active use in the Nordic and Baltic countries? 15 Visitor monitoring • Means all the different counting and survey exercises that are implemented in order to obtain systematic, repeated and reliable information about visitors and/or visits which is comparable across time. Visitor surveys Visitor counting Visitor information 16 ASTA - the visitor information system of NHS CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK AT SURVEYS AT •Visitor centers •Protected and •Outdoors.fi-webpages recreational areas •Visitor centers •Nature tourism enterprises •Nature tourism enterprises with cooperation agreement, annually VISITS AT •Protected and recreational areas •Visitor centers •Outdoors.fi-webpages 17 ASTA • Ensures that data is stored permanentely in a uniform manner • Parallel to the development of ASTA visitor information system and Nordic-Baltic visitor monitoring manual, guidelines for data gathering, management and reporting in NHS were developed • internal electric document -> easy to keep up to date • The organisation change leading to a matrix organisation occurred about the same time Allowed for developing a network of ASTA specialists 18 Organisation of National Heritage Services 1.1.2012 19 ASTA – steering personnel 1. Technical contact person in NHS: Mikko Pukkila 2. National coordinator: Development of the system and guidelines for using it: Hannamaria Potila 3. National reporting development: Martti Aarnio; together with the Estonians’ KÜSI 4.-9.: Regional coordination, e.g. support for users and training, checking the data quality Liisa Kajala and Carina Wennström (Southern Finland) Veikko Virkkunen and Minna Koramo (Ostrobothnia) Joel Erkkonen and Erkki Ollila (Lapland) • In the regions, there is one person from SMART network and one from VICSU network • In sharing the responsiblities for the system maintenance and updates, these specialties are taken into account 20 ASTA – four user types 1. Main users (9) • The steering personnel 2. Users with broad rights of establishing new surveys and visitor counts (138) • Senior advisors, planners and customer service personnel in park regions 3. Users with rights to enter data (95) • Field workers entering counter countings • Temporary employees entering e.g. visitor survey responses 4. Users with reporting rights (24) • Directors, central unit personnel etc. Altogether 266 users, no license fees 21 ASTA – annual clock • Continuous data entry so that by 15th of each month , the data of the previous month is entered • Annual figures in ASTA by Jan. 15th • The regional ASTA coordinators (2/region) check data of their region • The national coordinator produces national figures for annual reporting purposes • The national coordinator produces mid-term reporting at the end of August 22 ASTA – Minimum requirements for data collection in protected areas • Visitor surveys in protected areas • Every five years in all the national parks (37) and state hiking areas (7) + some other significant areas on average 8,8 surveys / year • Continuous visitor counting • At least during the seasons 23 ASTA – Minimum requirements for data collection in visitor centers • Surveys in visitor centers • Every five years • Continuous counting • Either manually or with electronic counters • Continuous feedback • Information on guided groups, including: • # of customers • Type of group • Type of environmental interpretation given 24 The current amount of data in ASTA, examples Protected areas • 124 visitor surveys since year 2000 • More than 45 000 survey responses • 364 electronic counters currently in use Visitor centers • 49 surveys since year 2000 • Close to 16 000 survey responses • 41 152 continuous feedback responses from nature centers Cooperation with entrepreneurs • 22 entrepreneur surveys • 528 survey responses 25 Contents of the Presentation • Protected areas in Finland • Development of visitor monitoring and information system in Finland and current practices • Use of visitor information • Future development Use of visitor information − At all the levels from annual goals set by the ministries to local decision making, management planning, communication etc. − Ensuring sustainability: principles of sustainable nature tourism in protected areas, indicators largely based on visitor information − Local economic impacts − Health benefits − Visitor profiles − Using the data broadly and openly ensures that the regions want to produce best possible data − Integration into other data base systems ensures maximum usage At an area level: Visitor survey reports published for each area 28 Results at an area level Visitor type n % Length of stay (for overnight visitors in days, for day visitors in hours) Average Median Mode Min Max Day visitor 279 90 3,1 3 2 0 15 Men 122 44 3,3 0 10 Women 142 51 2,8 0 8 Overnight visitor 30 10 2,8 2 1 1 15 Men 17 57 2,7 1 15 Women 13 43 3,0 1 12 Total 309 29 Utilisation of ASTA, comparisons at different levels Whole Kurjenrahka Southern country NP 2007 Finland 2007 2007 Importance of the protected n % n % n % area your trip´s only or the most important 244 90 1 689 65 2 163 62 destination one among other intended 16 6 712 27 1 017 29 destinations a non-planned destination along your 11 4 207 8 299 9 route Total 271 100 2 608 100 3 479 100 30 National demand statistics from ASTA Visitors 2010 2011 2012 Number of visits in visitor centres and customer 941 500 915 400 971 900 service points Number of visits in national parks (37) 1 958 500 2 086 500 2 087 300 Number of visits in national hiking areas (7) 364 000 356 000 354 000 Number of visitors in groups using NHS 62 100 61 900 74 200 interpretation services Average visitor satisfaction (scale1-5) 4,24 4,30 4,24 31 Number of visits to national parks and visitor centers 32 The most popular national parks are part of the appeal of the tourist destinations Number of