Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Cali Caughie
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Psychology Department
Abstract / Artist's Statement
A pandemic has the ability to affect lives from many different perspectives. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way people live, learn, and interact with one another; and it will create new social patterns reaching across virtually all platforms. One of the unforeseen problems with a pandemic includes the adaption needed to partake in social and recreational activities. Using a Qualtrics online survey posted on a popular forum for outdoor recreationists, this research study looked to investigate the varying trends due to COVID-19 on the winter outdoor sports community. The results demonstrate that the pandemic affected how people recreate, including whether they obtained resort passes and where they recreated. Additionally, it seems that the impact COVID-19 had on outdoor recreation varied across different geographic regions. In conclusion, this research suggests that the pandemic has caused changes within the outdoor winter recreation community. Understanding these effects is important on both individual and macroscale levels. Indeed, the data supports that resorts and communities dependent on tourism may see a decrease in commerce. Further, as recreationists find new places to recreate, safety concerns may increase. The trends in the data allow for an increase in the understanding of how global crises, akin to the COVID-19 pandemic, affect outdoor recreation and tourism, as well as how such crises impact emergency personnel.
Category
Social Sciences
Outdoor recreation in the Winter of a Pandemic
A pandemic has the ability to affect lives from many different perspectives. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way people live, learn, and interact with one another; and it will create new social patterns reaching across virtually all platforms. One of the unforeseen problems with a pandemic includes the adaption needed to partake in social and recreational activities. Using a Qualtrics online survey posted on a popular forum for outdoor recreationists, this research study looked to investigate the varying trends due to COVID-19 on the winter outdoor sports community. The results demonstrate that the pandemic affected how people recreate, including whether they obtained resort passes and where they recreated. Additionally, it seems that the impact COVID-19 had on outdoor recreation varied across different geographic regions. In conclusion, this research suggests that the pandemic has caused changes within the outdoor winter recreation community. Understanding these effects is important on both individual and macroscale levels. Indeed, the data supports that resorts and communities dependent on tourism may see a decrease in commerce. Further, as recreationists find new places to recreate, safety concerns may increase. The trends in the data allow for an increase in the understanding of how global crises, akin to the COVID-19 pandemic, affect outdoor recreation and tourism, as well as how such crises impact emergency personnel.