Abstract: The importance of nature tourism and outdoor recreation is increasing in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Information on visitors to nature areas is needed for managing outdoor recreation to ensure quality recreation experiences, tourism development, the promotion of public health and well-being, and the efficient protection of nature and cultural heritage in a sustainable way. The purpose of this manual is to provide managers with methods, tools and ideas for learning more about outdoor recreationists and their use of nature areas. The main focus is on practical matters: how to carry out visitor counting and visitor surveys, how to report the results and how to make use of the information obtained. The manual includes guidelines, recommendations and examples on visitor monitoring methodologies applicable to nature areas in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The manual has been produced by a group of specialists on visitor monitoring methodologies in nature areas, and it represents an effort to put harmonised methods into practice in the Nordic and Baltic countries. It is a first step towards obtaining uniform visitor monitoring information, creating a common basis for statistics and databases in this part of the world

This book describes the state of the art of tourism planning and management in national parks and protected areas. It also provides guidelines for best practice in tourism operations. Other objectives are to: Describe case studies and guidelines that contribute to conservation of biological diversity; consider the role of local communities within or near these areas; outline the development of tourism infrastructure and services; discuss visitor management; provide guidelines to enhance the quality of the tourism experience. The focus is global and the book will appeal to both academics and practitioners.

"Conventional methods used in the planning and management of human-landscape interactions fall far short of the needs of today s land management professionals. Monitoring, Simulation, and Management of Visitor Landscapes presents a growing body of applied research that provides decision makers with tools to maintain the ecological integrity of public places by evaluating the impacts of humans in various landscapes across space and time." "This will help land managers and policy makers construct strategies for evaluating interactions between humans and the environment and expand the model of land management to include social and geographic, as well as environmental, factors."--Jacket.

This is the final report of the project "Visitor Monitoring Methods in the Nordic and Baltic Countries". The goal of the project was to develop visitor monitoring methodologies for Nordic and Baltic land management agencies, the work of which is related to visitor management in protected and recreational areas. The report provides an overview of the visitor monitoring methods and guidelines currently available, including state-of-the-art reports and case studies from the Nordic and Baltic countries. The report concludes that there are certain common variables related to monitoring outdoor recreation that are important to all the Nordic and Baltic countries and that could be standardized. Therefore, the project group continues its work in order to produce recommendations for a common visitor monitoring methodology in protected and recreational areas in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. These recommendations will be published in the form of a Nordic-Baltic manual on visitor monitoring practices.

Visitors to parks and protected areas impact at many levels: political, economic, social and ecological. To ensure effective park management for increasing visitor numbers, good quality global data on visitor use is necessary. This manual describes terms, approaches and techniques for gathering information about public use of parks and protected areas. It covers a mixture of options ranging from direct measurements with automatic counters to indirect measurements based on simple mathematical calculations, providing a kit for producing the most accurate and sustainable enumeration of public use of protected areas under existing circumstances.