Subjective Perception or the Physical Environment: Which Matters More for Public Area Visitation Thresholds Across Different COVID-19 Pandemic Stages?

Abstract

Examines how visitation to parks and commercial areas in Las Vegas changed between 2019 and 2023, and what explains those patterns. GPS data, Google reviews and street-view imagery were combined, with natural language processing and machine learning relating sentiment, review topics and environmental features to visitation, and partial dependence plots used to read the fitted relationships. Environmental factors explain park visitation better, while sentiment and review topics explain business visitation. Green spaces proved more resilient through the pandemic than commercial areas: before it, parks were valued mainly for entertainment facilities and activities; afterwards, natural elements and infrastructure gained importance.