Management and Monitoring of Visitors in the Průhonice Park Czech Republic

World heritage Sites are iconic tourist attractions recognized as the world’s most significant cultural and natural places and visited by many tourists every year. This is the case of Průhonice Park, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010, and one of the most intensively used parks in the Czech Republic. That the Průhonice Park attracts so many people is very positive but it also points to serious challenges. In fact, the impact caused by hundred thousands of visitors constitutes a serious threat to the integrity of the park every year. This report presents a research program concerning the management and monitoring of recreational activities in the Průhonice Park, carried out in order to help ensure protection of the park’s resources and the quality of the visitor experience. The program of research consisted of three different components, namely, the estimation of recreational demand achieved through the counting of visitor tickets purchased at the entrances, visitor profiling and analyzing visitor motivations, preferences and perceptions obtained through the application of visitor’s questionnaires, and understanding the spatial and temporal patterns of visitor use conducted by using GPS data loggers to collect visitors travel data. All data were processed within a Geographic Information System (GIS), providing a reliable tool for the park management. Thus a good planning and management at the Průhonice Park depends on the combination of these techniques, and the application of a long-term monitoring in order to preserve the natural and cultural values for which it was classified.