10/10/2025
12:30 - 13:00
Forum - Arena
, Hybrid (onsite with livestreaming)
Session with interpretation
Why attend
Overtourism in protected areas threatens ecological integrity. How can big data serve to address key challenges related to increasing visitor pressure? Explore how mobile data approaches to identify overtourism hotspots and monitor visitor behavior can lead to better management strategies that ensure ecological integrity while enhancing tourist experiences.
Session Description
Sustainable tourism can support biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods in protected area buffer zones, generating income for conservation and nature restoration, and reducing reliance on unsustainable land uses, in line with IUCN WCC 2025’s theme Transitioning to Nature-Positive Economies and Societies. However, many protected areas worldwide face increasing pressure from visitation and overtourism, which threatens ecologically sensitive areas, and hampers the quality of visitor experiences. Effective visitor management strategies are needed to tackle these challenges, but they require robust data on visitation patterns.Traditional visitor monitoring methods are often limited in scope and efficiency. This session explores the use of mobile and smartphone-based geolocation data as an innovative tool to analyze seasonal and spatial patterns of visitor flows. We will demonstrate how such data can identify areas under pressure, and inform strategies to manage and direct visitor flows sustainably, ensuring long-term conservation and tourism benefits.