Visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding of the significance of Acadia National Park: 2016

Jacobi, Charles

From the summary: "The response rate for the visitor survey card in 2016, our fourth year with lock boxes and on site surveys, was 97%. Acadia National Park scored 100% 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 99% 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 87% for rest rooms and 84% 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 89% on visitor understanding of the significance of the park. Sixty-one percent of visitors knew Acadia was significant for its scenery and 27% percent knew it was significant for its recreation opportunities. These percentages are low compared with previous years. Sixteen percent of visitors knew Acadia was significant for its cultural heritage and 14% knew it was significant for its natural resources. Nineteen 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 = 31%). Recognition of the park’s cultural heritage and natural resources is much less common, though much improved over 1998, with means of 15% each. 2016 was an incredibly busy year at Acadia with a record 3.3 million visits. There have been sharp increases in visitation for each of the past three years. In 2016, the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road was closed ten times because of traffic back-ups and the Ocean Drive twice. It appears that this has been reflected in an increased number of comments in the surveys about, parking, congestion, and traffic. This is a very coarse measure, but the counts of these types of comments for the past several years were: 2011 - 4; 2012 - 3, 2013 - 7; 2014 - 10, 2015 - 13; and 2016 - 18."

Visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding of the significance of Acadia National Park: 2016

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