ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the project and discusses the implications for other recreation research programs. It examines one sustained recreation research program, the Visitor Services Project (VSP) of the US National Park Service, and searches for lessons as to how recreation research might be carried out in the 1990s. The chapter briefly describes the VSP, including its development, scope, methods, and results. It describes Rogers’ theory of the adoption and diffusion of innovations, and notes current critique and application of the theory. It evaluates VSP in light of the insights that emerge from understanding the processes of innovation. The VSP began in 1982 with a single pilot study conducted by the Cooperative Park Studies Unit at the University of Idaho. The VSP was made operational in 1985, with the results of its visitor studies now treated as “usable knowledge” for decision making.
