A More Sustainable Management of Domestic Tourists in Protected Natural Parks: A New Trend in Sport Tourism after the Covid-19 Pandemic?

One of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis has been the development of proximity tourism in outdoor spaces being less conducive to the spread of the virus. From a study preceding this pandemic, this article seeks to better understand the experiences lived by domestic tourists from when they visited two typical protected natural parks as specific experiential contexts (extraordinary versus ordinary) providing different experiences. Each experiential context enables the distinction of actual visitors’ experiences inside each park—education, esthetics, entertainment, escapism, physical activity—differentiated, on one hand by the visitors’ participation axis and, on the other hand, by the absorption-immersion axis influencing the visitors’ arousal and memory. A structural equation model tested the data collected (n = 1000) in both experiential contexts and shows their moderator effect. The results underline the link between the experiential context and the actual experiences and highlight the interest of a new global framework including the visitors’ participation and a bodily axis relative to the specific context. This research could help managers of protected natural parks adjust their domestic tourists’ experience offer during pandemic crises by implementing specific sustainable and sanitary strategies.