The Effect of COVID-19 on the Origins of Florida State Park Visitors and Online Reviewers

Abstract. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial socioeconomic disruptions and affected travel behaviour at various geographic scales. Public parks were some of the few recreational spaces that people could visit while adhering to the COVID-19 mitigation measures such as social distancing, travel restrictions, or curfews. This study draws data from profiles of TripAdvisor and Yelp users who reviewed Florida state park as well as origins of state park visitors from SafeGraph patterns data to compare the spatial distribution of reviewer and visitor origins before (2019) and during (2020) the pandemic. Results show an increase in the proportion of reviewers and visitors from within the State of Florida during the pandemic as well as shorter distance between reviewer/visitor origin states and Florida. This reflects reduced mobility at the national scale due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions but also highlights the important role of outdoor recreational areas, such as parks, for local communities during such crises.