Managing tourism pressure: Exploring tourist traffic patterns and seasonality in mountain national parks to alleviate overtourism effects

Overtourism results in pressure exerted on the natural environment, negative impacts on local communities and lower tourist satisfaction in many protected areas (PAs). This phenomenon has become an increasingly important issue in the management of national parks (NPs) in Poland, especially the mountain ones. Countering and alleviating the effects of overtourism requires developing appropriate management strategies based on the detailed analysis of tourism monitoring data. Having recognized this need, a research was conducted to develop methodology for analyzing daily visitors in NPs (methodological objective), to identify regularities characteristic for visitor flow in mountain NPs in Poland (cognitive objective), and to present the usefulness of monitoring studies in developing effective strategies aimed at tourist traffic management in NPs and their surrounding areas (application objective). The availability of data allowed conducting analyses for three national parks: The Pieniny NP (PNP), The Stołowe Mountains NP (SMNP) and The Tatra NP (TNP). The analyses covering the period 2017-2022 revealed a strong intensification of visitor flow and a growing problem of overtourism in the analyzed areas, primarily in TNP. An increase in maximum daily values, the number of days showing these values, and intensified tourist traffic off-high season were found. Using Daily Visitor Index and Seasonality Index, high-, mid-, and low seasons were identified, including the similarities in traffic seasonality between PNP and SMNP, along with the different nature of TNP, where the winter season was additionally separated. Using the Monthly Visitor Index and Gini coefficient, the long-term variation analysis revealed a reduction in the seasonality of tourism resulting from higher intensity of visits off summer season, in particular the extension of mid-seasons. Due to the growing number of high season visitors and the increasing visitor flow, it is necessary to implement time-limit measures at specific locations and activities aimed at temporal and spatial tourist traffic dispersion. The study shows the development process of overtourism in NPs. It also gives indications that the uneven spatial distribution of visitor flow determines the need for diagnosing overtourism in places and periods with the highest visitation intensity. Such a diagnosis is essential for effective tourism management in NPs and supports decision-making processes for the development of surrounding localities.