A Generalized Model for Birth and Death Mathematical Procedures in the Visitor Management: Evidence from a Protected Area 

Ioannis E. Kyritsis and Nikolaos M. Tabakis

 

Abstract

This paper proposes a generalized model to explain the formation of the annual number of domestic and foreign visitors to Mount Olympus National Park extending the usual birth and death mathematical models. By considering that the time variable takes values from a continuum, we study the dynamics of the population via the calculation of the corresponding marginal changes. The results suggest that these changes could be expressed as the sum of two terms: The first term expresses the change that corresponds to the size of population (phenomenon of “birth” or “death” in the population), while the second term is exclusively a function of time (phenomenon of “out-migration” from or “in-migration” to the population). The proposed method could be used to study similar population structures aiming at the more efficient management of natural areas.

Keywords: stochastic processes, birth-death models, dynamics of a population