Forests, Vol. 15, Pages 477: Changes in Social Media Big Data on Healing Forests: A Time-Series Analysis on the Use Behavior of Healing Forests before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea

Forests, Vol. 15, Pages 477: Changes in Social Media Big Data on Healing Forests: A Time-Series Analysis on the Use Behavior of Healing Forests before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea

Forests doi: 10.3390/f15030477

Authors: Ju-Yeong Youn Sang-wook Kim

This study aimed to identify changes in visitor behavior and visitor interest in healing forests before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used text mining analysis techniques to identify changes in visitation behavior over time, divided into three periods, as follows: pre-COVID-19 (1 January to 31 December 2019), during the COVID-19 pandemic (1 November 2020 to 31 October 2022), and post-COVID-19 (1 November 2022 to 31 October 2023). After the COVID-19 outbreak, healing forest use behavior did not revert to pre-COVID-19 patterns. Moreover, the keywords “tourism” and “hiking” stood out as the main drivers of this change in behavior. Therefore, the Korea Forest Service and related authorities must examine the scalability of the functions, services, and programs of healing forests from a general healing space to a space for leisure and tourism. These findings will contribute to the development of future marketing strategies and programs for healing forests.