Using social media to quantify nature-based tourism and recreation

Spencer A Wood1, Anne D Guerry, Jessica M Silver

  • 11] Natural Capital Project, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA [2] Natural Capital Project, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Scientific Reports
|October 18, 2013
PubMed
Summary

Online social media photos, like those from flickr, can reliably estimate nature recreation visitation rates. This "big data" approach offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional surveys for understanding global travel patterns.

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