2 Mapping State Tourism Data
State Tourism Data, such as interstate passenger trips and outdoor recreation of the states, is essential for clustering analysis of national parks by recreation visits because it provides critical contextual and explanatory variables that enhance the understanding of park visitation patterns. In this section, I processed the state-level tourism data to gain more insights.
2.1 Data Wrangling
The Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account is released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. It provides a comprehensive overview of the outdoor recreation economy, including their impact on value added, gross output, employment, and compensation. The outdoor recreation by industry data highlights the contributions of various sectors to the economy. In 2023, the arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services industry group was the largest contributor to U.S. outdoor recreation current-dollar value added. As a result, both the total outdoor recreation data and the accommodation and food services industry data are carefully analyzed and processed.
| States | Total outdoor recreation value added (thousands of dollars) | Total outdoor recreation employment | Total outdoor recreation compensation (thousands of dollars) | Accommodation and food services value added | Accommodation and food services employment | Accommodation and food services compensation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Alabama | 6589810 | 65409 | 2963564 | 872220 | 13335 | 428590 |
| 1 | Alaska | 3140446 | 21242 | 1546654 | 484165 | 5672 | 266655 |
| 2 | Arizona | 14082598 | 110794 | 6677548 | 2497418 | 28473 | 1268011 |
| 3 | Arkansas | 4503775 | 40987 | 2010246 | 616951 | 9538 | 286275 |
| 4 | California | 81495632 | 545448 | 38141606 | 11538652 | 118110 | 6071013 |
The Interstate Passenger Trips by Destination data, obtained from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, provides valuable insights into visitation patterns and modes of transportation to national parks. Specifically, the data on interstate personal vehicle trips originating from all states is carefully processed and analyzed to better understand visitation trends.
| Destination | Vehicle Trips | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Alabama | 136077142 |
| 1 | Alaska | 0 |
| 2 | Arizona | 51537440 |
| 3 | Arkansas | 86271723 |
| 4 | California | 73650366 |
For better visualization, Alaska and Hawaii are placed at the bottom of the United States. The states data is pre-processed in R using the urbnmapr package.
2.2 Data Pre-processing
State tourism data is merged with the geometry of states for further geospatial analysis.
| Destination | tourism_data | values | geometry | state_name | state_abbv | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Alabama | Total outdoor recreation value added (thousand... | 6589810 | MULTIPOLYGON (((1150023.442 -1526367.945, 1150... | Alabama | AL |
| 1 | Alabama | Total outdoor recreation employment | 65409 | MULTIPOLYGON (((1150023.442 -1526367.945, 1150... | Alabama | AL |
| 2 | Alabama | Total outdoor recreation compensation (thousan... | 2963564 | MULTIPOLYGON (((1150023.442 -1526367.945, 1150... | Alabama | AL |
| 3 | Alabama | Accommodation and food services value added | 872220 | MULTIPOLYGON (((1150023.442 -1526367.945, 1150... | Alabama | AL |
| 4 | Alabama | Accommodation and food services employment | 13335 | MULTIPOLYGON (((1150023.442 -1526367.945, 1150... | Alabama | AL |
2.3 Tourism Data by State
According to the choropleth maps of each indicator,the Total Outdoor Recreation Value Added, Accommodation and Food Services Value Added, and Vehicle Trips of the states highlight distinct patterns that are ideal for clustering analysis. These differences suggest that these factors can provide meaningful insights when grouping states for further analysis.
Total Outdoor Recreation Value Added: This visualization shows outdoor recreation value added (in thousands of dollars), with values ranging from 0 to 80 million. California and Texas stand out with the darkest blue shades, suggesting they lead in outdoor recreation value added. Florida also shows a dark blue color, while most other states display much lighter shades, indicating lower outdoor recreation economic impact.
Accommodation and Food Services Value Added: This map displays a different pattern, with values ranging from 0 to 10 million. The most striking feature is the dark blue coloring in California and Florida, along with a moderately dark shade in Texas. These three states appear to generate the highest value added from accommodation and food services. Most other states show much lighter shades, indicating lower values in this category.
Vehicle Trips: This map shows tourism-related vehicle trips across US states, with values ranging from 0 to 400 million. The darkest blue coloring appears in the northeastern states, particularly New York, indicating this region has the highest number of vehicle trips. There’s a gradual decrease in intensity moving westward, with most western states showing lighter blue shades, suggesting lower vehicle trip numbers.
Vehicle trips are concentrated in the Northeast, while accommodation services and outdoor recreation value are highest in California, Texas, and Florida. The distribution of vehicle trips shows a more gradual east-to-west gradient, whereas the other two indicators display more concentrated “hotspots” in specific states, emphasizing regional variations in outdoor recreation trends.