Visitors have flocked to Western communities during the pandemic to soak in the region’s public lands. But how many visitors? While the National Park Service closely monitors visitation, national forests and the Bureau of Land Management lack an efficient and cost-effective way to measure foot traffic.
Yet that kind of information, along with data on state and local lands, is crucial for Western communities trying to balance the good and the bad of increased visitation, said Megan Lawson, an economist at Headwaters Economics. The nonpartisan research group that studies community development recently released a report recommending digital tools to collect such data.