Operation and Management
The National Park Authority is a local government body and therefore essentially different from a commercial business. The words 'customer' and 'marketing' are appropriate to the buying and selling of goods and services; the National Park Authority's main tasks do not involve buying or selling anything.
Guiding and interpretation -
The National Park Authority runs a programme of guided walks, as well as a guide hire service, see Guided Walks and Education Guide Hire. For further details concerning the nature of the work of those employed by the National Park Authority, see Working Together, especially the Ranger Service, and Dartmoor National Park Authority Best Value Performance Plan 2005/06.
Managing visitor groups -
Refer to Moor Care Recreational Events.
Managing disruptions or emergencies -
The National Park Authority, especially the Ranger Service, co-operates with the emergency services to manage disruptions or emergencies. See the Ranger Service section on the web site.
Interpretation techniques -
The National Park Authority uses every available technique to communicate and interpret to the general public. The best place to experience the variety of techniques is the High Moorland Visitor Centre at Princetown. See Dartmoor National Park Management Plan, part 4.2, page 39.
Ensuring health and safety of visitors, staff & equipment -
The National Park Authority's purposes do not include ensuring the health and safety of visitors; however, it endeavours to comply with all the legal responsibilities and health and safety guidelines in the same way as any other local government body. There is a Dartmoor Commons Act, and a list of byelaws appropriate to most of the access land within the National Park; these Byelaws are upheld by the Ranger Service, see Byelaws.
Facilities offered to encourage secondary spending -
The great majority of facilities that encourage spending by visitors within the Dartmoor National Park are independent businesses; see Dartmoor Tourist Association (external link, opens new window); this links to the National Park Authority's duty to foster the economic welfare of the community that live and work on Dartmoor. As the Authority does not charge for entry to Dartmoor National Park, this cannot be called secondary spending.
Managing visitors -
We do not have the power to stop visitors coming to Dartmoor. However, we do try to manage them in various ways, see Dartmoor National Park Management Plan, part 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6 on pages 43 to 51. We campaign to modify the behaviour of visitors through our Moor Care campaign.
Adapting the attraction to meet visitor use -
The National Park Authority carries out a great deal of work on sites managed to accommodate heavy use, to try to minimise the impact of the visitors while maintaining the natural beauty of the sites. See figure 2 in Traffic Management Strategy. See also the Erosion Case Study of Haytor.
Techniques used to control traffic flow to and from the attraction -
The National Park Authority tries to influence visitor traffic in various ways, see Traffic Management Strategy.
Page updated 28 November 2005
