Visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding of the significance of Acadia National Park: 2015
Jacobi C. 2015. Visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding of the significance of Acadia National Park: 2015. Acadia National Park Natural Resources Report Number 2016 - 5. National Park Service, Acadia National Park
From the summary: "The response rate for the visitor survey card in 2015, our fourth year with lock boxes and on site surveys, was 96%. Acadia National Park scored 99% on satisfaction for the overall quality of visitor facilities, services, and recreation opportunities. The combined evaluation criteria scores for park facilities, services, and recreation opportunities were 99%, 97%, and 98% respectively as well. As always, visitor satisfaction with restrooms and commercial services had the lowest overall evaluation scores (4.2 and 4.3 on a scale of 1 to 5 respectively). Their associated satisfaction measures (good and very good combined) were 84% for rest rooms and 83% for commercial services. We have been above 80% for rest rooms since 2005; before 2005 we were frequently below 80%. All other individual measures for various facilities, services, and recreation opportunities were at 4.5 or above, and all of these had a 90% or greater satisfaction measure. Acadia National Park scored 68% on visitor understanding of the significance of the park based on word recognition coding by the consultant, and 84% based our own analysis. This last score is still considerably lower than previous years. Sixty-three percent of visitors knew Acadia was significant for its scenery and 22% percent knew it was significant for its recreation opportunities. These percentages are low compared with previous years. Eleven percent of visitors knew Acadia was significant for its cultural heritage and 8% knew it was significant for its natural resources. Fifteen years of data consistently show that visitors most often recognize Acadia is significant for its scenery (mean = 70%), followed by recognition of its recreation opportunities (mean = 32%). Recognition of the park’s cultural heritage and natural resources is much less common, though much improved over 1998, with means of 15% each. The lock box and the computer word recognition protocols have resulted in fewer matched answers to the significance question, probably because people are filling it out on-site with less time to think."
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Jacobi, Charles
- Date of Issue
- 2015-03
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Acadia National Park
- Units
- ACAD
- Keywords
- visitor experience, visitor use, visitors