Penn State professor to use Fulbright Award to promote conservation in Singapore

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa — Bing Pan, professor of recreation, park and tourism management at Penn State, has been named a 2023-24 Fulbright scholar by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Pan will collaborate with the National Parks Board of Singapore and Michael Chiam of Ngee Ann Polytechnic University to investigate the best methods for tracking visitor behavior and experiences while conserving natural resources in urban parks in Singapore.

Singapore has nearly 5.5 million people living in only 283 square miles, which is a larger population in a smaller area than the city of Los Angeles. This population density means that there is a limited amount of land available for conservation or ecotourism. Even so, the city-state of Singapore is one of the greenest cities in the world due to decades of design efforts that prioritized a healthy natural environment, according to Pan.

Due to the limited amount of available land, Singapore works to maximize the utility of land set aside for tourism development to satisfy both the needs of residents and visitors. Pan said he believes that Singapore needs to monitor visitor flows in order to protect its natural and cultural heritage and ensure an enjoyable visitor experience.

Pan, one of 12 Penn State faculty members named a 2023-24 Fulbright scholar, has years of experience studying visitor experience and behavior in national parks in the United States. For this project, Pan will spend the spring 2024 semester in Singapore, employing intercept surveys, GPS trackers, social media and cellphone data to identify the best visitor-tracking methods.

Pan will work in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a tropical garden that is more than one and a half centuries old. The gardens are a UNESCO World Heritage Site that, despite being only 200 acres in size — a little more than half the size of the Penn State Arboretum — receive more than 4.5 million visitors a year. By studying crowding and visitor flow, Pan will develop recommendations about potential visitor limits or visitor-flow mechanisms that he hopes will preserve the gardens for another 150 years.

This research aims to help leadership in Singapore better understand how to create an optimal experience for its visitors and citizens and preserve valuable natural and cultural resources. Pan said he plans to bring back best practices, technologies and methods to the United States so that parks and protected areas can create the best tourist experiences while protecting the nation’s natural diversity and beauty.

“Singapore is very technologically advanced and is committed to environmental conservation,” Pan said. “Additionally, their parks see some of the most extreme crowding in the world due to the local population density. These factors make Singapore the ideal place to study visitor management because there a few places in the world where the issue is so important. I believe this research will help to develop methods that can improve the experiences of visitors at parks and wild areas in Singapore, the United States and all around the world.”

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is supported by the U.S. and partner countries around the world. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program. Over 800 U.S. citizens will teach and/or conduct research abroad during the 2023-24 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs can be contacted at ECA-Press@state.gov.