Deciphering the effect of user-generated content on park visitation: A comparative study of nine Chinese cities in the Pearl River Delta

Identifying key factors affecting park visitation is critical for promoting park visitation and maximizing parks’ health and social benefits. Little research has comprehensively revealed the effects of UGC on park visitation within a large regional context, despite its pervasive influence in modern society. Furthermore, although existing research indicated that factors influencing park visitation may vary across different cities, few studies have linked such heterogeneity to different city levels, i.e., cities with different economic status, population size and urbanization level. In this study, we performed comparative research to reveal the effect of UGC on park visitation in nine cities with different urban contexts and economic levels within the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China based on 1,771,093 UGC and mobility data of sample parks. Our results demonstrated that UGC exposure, sentiment, and rating had significant effects on park visitation across all PRD cities; the effect of UGC rating was higher than that of most other variables. Furthermore, most high-value clusters of UGC were concentrated in first-tier cities, while low-value clusters were in non-first-tier cities. Moreover, the effects of UGC variables showed a decreasing trend with lower city levels, while the effect of certain built environment variables exhibited an increasing trend with lower city levels. Our study sheds light on the key factors in park usage, providing effective pathways for policymakers and urban designers to maximize the utilization of urban parks across various city types in modern society. •User-generated content (UGC) could affect park visitation across all city levels.•The rating, sentiment, and exposure of UGC attributes were significant.•Spatial heterogeneity in UGC attributes was identified.•UGC effects on park visitation increased with city levels.