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Tourism And Outdoor Tourism

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Just as fashion or civil rights change over time, tourism changes as well. Outdoor recreation is one subcategory of tourism that has seen many changes. The National Park Service is a public agency that is responsible for protecting public lands in the United States. The first national park was established in 1872 and the National Park Service was founded in 1916 (Frequently, 2017). Since then, the number of parks and number of visitors to the parks has increased tremendously. This increased number of visitors has changed the way we use the parks for recreation and the impact we have on the ecosystems in the parks.
Tourism is defined as recreational travel (Russell, 2017) and comes in many forms. People enjoy traveling to other countries, …show more content…

In 2016, approximately 330,971,689 people visited the national parks (Frequently, 2017), many more than 326,506 when the National Park Service was created (Visitation, 2015). Yellowstone National Park comes in at 4,097,710 visitors in 2015. At the time of publication, the National Park Service reported 13,256,763,256 visits to all NPS protected areas since 1904 (Visitation, 2015).
As the number of visitors to the national parks increases, the impact on environmental quality and visitor experience increases as well. More people means a greater impact on the vegetation as people hike around the protected lands. When people hike through already delicate ecosystems, they destroy potential habitats and food sources for the animals and insects in the parks. When the animals no longer have adequate food or habitats, they either leave the area or die off. When animals leave the area, other animals lose potential food sources. When the animals die, it puts the species at a higher risk of extinction (Dustin, 2016, 47).
In addition to the purely environmental impact, an increased number of visitors leads to lower visitor satisfaction. Many people visit the parks to experience the natural beauty of our country without large crowds. However, the parks are becoming more and more crowded each year. The environmental impact the visitors have on the parks also decreases the

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