We assess the brand strength of the main large-scale protected area (PA) categories in Germany based on the marketing funnel logic. It has long been argued in the literature that PAs, in general, can be strong regional brands in tourism, but that different PA categories may have a stronger or weaker brand identity. For example, it is often claimed that the national park label is the most well-known worldwide, and hence the most attractive as a tourist brand. However, the difference in brand strength has so far not been systematically assessed with nationally representative studies. Our research note addresses this gap, relying on a representative panel survey (N = 3,192) for Germany. We find that national parks are indeed the strongest brand, and that nature parks, despite being often described as a rather weak protection category, come second. On the other hand, biosphere reserves, although characterized as the most modern approach to area conservation, have a much more diffuse image. Implications point to the need for a stronger focus on differences between PA categories in communication and marketing.

Biosphere Reserves, as designated by UNESCO, serve as models for sustainable development, fostering balanced interactions between humans and nature. In this framework, tourism plays a vital role, supporting local economies and awareness of sustainable practices, as well as conservation, management, and development efforts. However, little is known about the overall scope and economic impact of tourism in Biosphere Reserves, particularly in industrialized nations. This study presents the first comprehensive assessment of tourism and the economic impact of visitor spending across Germany's 18 Biosphere Reserves. Key parameters include visitor days by overnight guests and day visitors, visitors' affinity for the Biosphere Reserves, and the economic impact of visitor spending. Germany's Biosphere Reserves recorded 71.6 million visitor days, generating 1.97 billion in direct and indirect value added through on-site spending. Most German Biosphere Reserves are popular day trip destinations, attracting visitors from nearby agglomerations. Visitors with a high affinity for the Biosphere Reserve accounted for 11% of visitor days, generating an economic impact of 85.63 million in value added. The study highlights the Biosphere Reserves' potential in promoting awareness for sustainable conservation and development measures. It also proposes a standardized, replicable approach for measuring economic impacts of tourism in protected areas worldwide, supporting long-term socio-economic monitoring within UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

The ecologically valuable and unique natural and cultural landscapes of protected areas are popular nature tourism destinations. From a spatial perspective, travellers visit protected areas by moving from their place of origin to the destination for a temporary stay. This paper analyses the travel distances of day visitors and overnight guests to German national parks and biosphere reserves. National parks position themselves as both regional and national destinations. In contrast, biosphere reserve tourism is more regionally concentrated due to the proximity of biosphere reserves to urban centres, which are the primary places of origin for visitors. On average, visitors travel 278.6 km by car to visit a national park, taking 172.1 minutes (02:52 hours). Opting for public transport increases the average travel distance to 312.5 km, with a travel time of 284.5 minutes (04:43 hours). Visitors to German biosphere reserves travel 208.7 km by car, requiring 134.7 minutes (02:15 hours). When using public transport to visit biosphere reserves, the average distance increases to 234.0 km, with a travel time of 239.1 minutes (03:59 hours). The automated, GIS-supported distance analyses offer an innovative approach for assessing nature tourism catchment areas and the accessibility of protected areas, serving as a basis for effective spatial planning, development, and regional marketing.

Questions about park–people relationships and the understanding and handling of the conflicts that may result from the creation and management of national parks in the surrounding area are prerequisites for both successful park management and sustainable rural tourism development. This paper analyzes the roles that research may play in relation to park–people relationships in the context of the two oldest German national parks located in Bavaria. The different fields of action of national parks are used to identify the potential for conflict, using detailed case studies from the Bavarian Forest and Berchtesgaden National Parks using quantitative population surveys carried out in 2018. The overall attitude towards both national parks is overwhelmingly positive, with trust towards park administrations and the perceived economic benefits from rural tourism being the attitudes most strongly correlated to the overall level of park–people relationships. Nevertheless, some points of contention still exist, like the ecological integrity approach towards strict nature conservation and related landscape changes (e.g., deadwood cover). A comparison over time shows in both cases that the spatial proximity to the protected area negatively influences people’s attitudes towards the parks, but less so than in the past. Recommendations for national park management include communicating proactively and with greater transparency with locals and decision-makers, to identify conflicts earlier and, where possible, to eliminate them. Furthermore, developing a standardized method to monitor park–people relationships in Germany is a must and would benefit integrated approaches in research and management based on conservation social science.

Protected areas not only contribute to the protection of biological diversity but also offer spaces for outdoor recreation and tourism. As is well known, visitor monitoring is required for various reasons. The need to collect comparable visitation data in Germany's protected areas became clear with a first pilot study in 2001 at Berchtesgaden National Park. Since then, additional studies have estimated visitation using a standardized methodology. This article focuses on this methodology by examining how visitation is registered in protected areas in Germany, where a combination of censuses and structural surveys are used on selected survey days and at certain survey sites. Extrapolations of such raw data consider variations in visitor volume according to season, the day of the week, and weather conditions, while also integrating visitor segmentation and official statistical data. Differences in spatial structure are reflected in those visitor segments and outdoor activities. Parks near urban areas show a high share of day-visitors, while overnight tourism predominates in more remote areas, especially traditional tourist destinations. Using this method, initial studies calculated about 53 million visitor days per year in national parks, and over 65 million visitor days in biosphere reserves. In combination with alternative counting methods, such as automatic counters, long-term monitoring must be set up to operate permanently in order to meet international reporting obligations and verify the carrying capacity of protected areas.

Social media data are increasingly utilised as a low-cost alternative to visitor surveys in characterising nature-based recreation. However, the information available on individual users is limited and typically does not include provenance, restricting the potential applications and impact of the data. Here we investigate a methodology to estimate social media visitors' home locations at various spatial scales and apply it to the entire network of national parks in Germany. We compare predicted visitor provenance to representative onsite survey data and explore group-specific spatial and temporal patterns of recreation as characterised by users' geotagged photographs. Results show that photograph metadata can be used to assign home locations with accuracies between 62 and 89% depending on spatial scale implemented. Said social media-based predictions are reasonably well representative of the surveyed visitor structure in German national parks with Flickr visitor-days composed of 19% local, 62% non-local German and 19% international visits.

Representing the economic value of recreation generated by natural ecosystems can provide a powerful incentive for their conservation. Demonstrating value, however, requires resource-intensive surveys or reliance on techniques which transfer value from other sites. Recent technological developments have contributed to an abundance of georeferenced public data as an alternative for exploring human-nature interactions, offering a potential substitute to costly and time-consuming visitor surveys and their commonly adopted alternative for the valuation of recreation, value transfer. Here, we (1) integrate data crowdsourced from geotagged photographs from social media into the travel cost method non-market valuation technique and (2) validate the results with value estimates generated using representative on-site surveys for German national parks and value transfer techniques. As expected from standard economic and consumer demand theory for ordinary goods, we find downsloping demand curves. Consumer surplus for access to the parks ranges between (sic)16.54 and (sic)34.90 (2016 rates). Value estimates are significantly correlated with those generated by on-site surveys, with a mean absolute error of (sic)4.93 and a mean absolute percentage error of 22%, outperforming basic unit value transfer. We highlight the entailed, unprecedented opportunities to extend the scope and reduce costs of research seeking to value outdoor recreation.

This paper estimates the recreational ecosystem services (RES) of 15 German national parks (NLP) in one of the most comprehensive RES valuations of NLP systems performed to date. The RES were evaluated using zonal travel cost models (TCM) based on 24,548 representative interviews conducted with a uniform methodology between 2004 and 2015. Reaction functions were estimated for each park as double-log regression models. The lower-limit consumer surplus of recreation in German NLP totals EUR 385.3-621.8 million (including only visitors whose trip decisions were influenced by the parks' protected status), while an upper-limit value reached EUR 1.690-2.751 billion (including all visitors). Thus, NLP generate enormous non-monetary values for German society. The standardized approach applied could be used to harmonize assessments and valuations of RES in protected areas. Finally, the article advances the theory of RES assessment, valuation and mapping by highlighting the importance of on-site visitation data. RES do not exist a priori, but emerge as co-products of ecosystems and visitors' perceptions and valuations. For this reason, we discourage the use of context-specific RES results in benefit transfer approaches. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Agricultural landscapes safeguard ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity upon which human well-being depends. However, only a fraction of these services are generally considered in land management decisions, resulting in trade-offs and societally inefficient solutions. The TEEB Study (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) spearheaded the development of assessments of the economic significance of ES and biodiversity. Several national TEEB follow-ups have compiled case studies and derived targeted policy advice. By synthesizing insights from "Natural Capital Germany - TEEB DE" and focusing on rural areas, the objectives of this study were (i) to explore causes of the continued decline of ES and biodiversity, (ii) to introduce case studies exemplifying the economic significance of ES and biodiversity in land use decisions, and (iii) to synthesize key recommendations for policy, planning and management. Our findings indicate that the continued decrease of ES and biodiversity in Germany can be explained by implementation deficits within a well-established nature conservation system. Three case studies on grassland protection, the establishment of riverbank buffer zones and water-sensitive farming illustrate that an economic perspective can convey recognition of the values of ES and biodiversity. We conclude with suggestions for enhanced consideration, improved conservation and sustainable use of ES and biodiversity. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Land-use systems and biodiversity in Germany can be investigated using the network of protected areas. This issue focuses on nature parks, national parks and biosphere reserves that are confronted with various problems related to competition for land and acceptance. The working group “Biodiversity and sustainable land use in protected areas” of the Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL) has tackled this topic. This paper reviews the research questions that are debated in this special issue of “Raumforschung und Raumordnung”. These questions include the influence of different land-use systems on the state of ecosystem services, how the different types of protected areas should be evaluated in terms of their individual contributions to the conservation and development of biodiversity, the role played specifically by woods and forestry management with regard to biodiversity and sustainable land use, and the patterns of conflict that exist due to competing land uses. Attention is also paid to concrete governance approaches in protected areas against the background of competition for land and the question of how experience gained in protected areas can be transferred to ‚normal‘ landscapes. The paper also provides basic definitions relevant to the topic. Finally, from the perspective of various disciplines, the working group calls for policy and planning actors to support the sustainable development of protected areas in Germany. Here the focus is not only on a stringent strengthening of the status of protected areas on the federal level combined with appropriate administrative structures, but also on promoting improved quality assurance and quality development of the protected areas. Of further relevance to these calls for action is the field of tension between the necessity for strengthened process protection and the intensification of agriculture in the context of EU Common Agricultural Policy.

To safeguard ecosystem services has been defined as a central goal for large protected areas in several international agreements. This study investigates the importance of the ecosystem services approach for biosphere reserves in Germany. The ecosystem services approach can be useful in various fields for large protected areas, e.g. as approach in communication, fundraising, monitoring, planning and management. The analysis of the evaluation reports of the currently 15 UNESCO biosphere reserves in Germany shows a high variation in the degree of implementing the ecosystem services approach. The biosphere reserves at the North Sea coast are leading, possibly as they are subject to the trilateral agreement on the Wadden Sea, as the evaluation reports are fairly new, and they have better equipped management, being biosphere reserves and national parks at the same time. Important barriers of the implementation of the ecosystem services approach may arise from limited resources and from the administrative allocation of reserve management to environmental ministries, which is in conflict with the cross-sectoral character of the ecosystem services approach.

The traditional view of nature-based tourists as a relatively homogeneous group has been questioned, and several scholars have suggested various segmentation typologies. This paper discusses market and industry changes and notes key trends, as Fordist tourist products have been replaced by post-Fordist and neo-Fordist products, with both McDonaldization and McDisneyization developments. A range of visitor-based typologies are reviewed, and the conflict between capturing the diversity of today's nature-based tourists while offering management bodies simple tools to segment visitors, identify core groups and improve their marketing is noted. In an attempt to overcome this conflict, the paper presents a conceptual framework which focuses on nature-based tourism products instead of tourist types, therefore incorporating aspects of both the demand and supply sides of the nature-based tourism industry market. A two-dimensional matrix is suggested, linking four basic travel motivations (nature conservation, nature experience, sports/adventure and hedonistic) to four different types of tourist products (independent, à la carte, customized and standardized), giving a total typology of 16 different types. The matrix should help protected area managers to better understand tourist needs, suggest management measures and help to create more sustainable forms of tourism. Empirical testing is suggested as a next step.

Tourism in protected areas can create considerable income for adjacent communities. Based on face-to-face visitor surveys, the present study measures the structure, size and economic impact of tourist expenditure in the six German national parks Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer, Bayerischer Wald, Eifel, Müritz, Hainich and Kellerwald-Edersee. We find that mean daily expenditure per person of national park visitors is considerably below the national averages for tourists in Germany: day-trippers spend between EUR 7 and 13 per day (national average: EUR 28), whereas overnight visitors spend between EUR 37 and 57 (national average: EUR 120). The proportion of visitors with high national park affinity varies between a maximum of almost 46% in Bayerischer Wald and a minimum of nearly 11% in Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer. Between 49% and 51% of tourist expenditure is captured as direct and indirect income. The total impact of tourism ranges between EUR 525 million in Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer and EUR 1.9 million in Kellerwald-Edersee, reflecting the national parks’ distinct trajectories as tourist destinations. In order to increase the economic benefits accruing from national parks regional policy could aim at a qualitative upgrading of tourist services, increased marketing of the unique national park label and the promotion of a diverse regional supply base.

Nationalparke vorfolgen in erster Linie Naturschutzziele. Traditionell spielen sie daruber hinaus eine Rolle als Destinationen des Naturtourismus. Vom Tourismus gehen vielfaltige Wirkungen aus, welche sich im okonomische Bereich zumindest in Teilen eindeutig monetar quantifizieren lassen. Der vorliegende Band versucht daher zunachst anhand von funf Fallbeispielen, den Stellenwert des Tourismus in Nationalparken Deutschlands fur die jeweilige regionale Wirtschaft zu bestimmen. Zudem wird mittels einer Hochrechnung abgeschatzt, wie sich die Situation fur Nationalparke deutschlandweit darstellt. Die Resultate machen deutlich, dass der mit Nationalparken verbundene Tourismus durchaus einen beachtlichen wirtschaftlichen Beitrag fur die Regionalwirtschaft leistet. Dadurch wird zum einen ersichtlich, dass dem landschaftsbezogenen Tourismus im regionalpolitischen Meinungsbildungsprozess durchaus ein hohere Akzeptanz -- sowohl in der Bevolkerung als auch bei politischen und wirtschaftlichen Entscheidungstragerinnen und -tragern -- fur die Nationalparks vor Ort zu schaffen.