Establishment of a cross-border visitor monitoring system

The management of visitors from the rapidly growing agglomerations (Munich, Augsburg, Innsbruck) in the vicinity of the EUREGIO Zugspitze Wetterstein Karwendel is crucial for protecting the natural environment and maintaining tourism acceptance among the local population and landowners. The foundation for this is a robust visitor monitoring system that collects extensive data on current usage within the care areas of the project partners: Nature Park Karwendel, Nature Park Ammergau Alps, Tourism Association Seefeld, and Zugspitz Region. The project follows the innovative idea of linking point-specific visitor counts via sensors with broad digital data.

Visitor counts are conducted on the one hand with data protection-compliant image and lidar sensors, which can differentiate between different users such as hikers, cyclists, or motorists. On the other hand, we also use simple infrared counters in mountaineering that can only distinguish the walking direction of hikers. The 10 sensors installed in the project validate the broadly available data that Outdooractive, for example, receives through GPS tracking of its users. This enables local partners to obtain reliable time series on the actual use of visitor hotspots and nature conservation-sensitive areas as well as short-term forecasts.

After the project starts, the visitor counting sensors will be installed first, and the data import of the measurement data to the data storage systems of the project partners will be ensured. Outdooractive will then integrate the measurement results into its heatmap, which spatially represents the current and forecasted usage. In the third step, the data of the heatmap will be validated through observations in the field and with reference data, e.g., from Strava.

By the end of the project, local partners will thus have a cross-border visitor monitoring system available, the reliability and accuracy of which has been verified. On this basis, the project partners can support political debates, e.g., on the topic of overtourism, with reliable figures, optimize ranger deployment, and inform guests about the actual occupancy at visitor hotspots.