Estimating Recreational Travel and Economic Values of State Parks

Abstract

Recreational travel—unlike work trips—is highly discretionary; it is also highly sensitive to the location and attractiveness of a recreational facility. Estimating visitations to state parks therefore requires a demand model that explicitly includes both travel propensity to the entire system of parks and choice among individual, competing facilities. These two components—corresponding to the complementary and substitutional effects among recreational sites—are incorporated in a model specification. A decomposition procedure calibrates each of these two components individually and then integrates them in the final model. The procedure is successfully applied toward the waterfront state parks in the New York/Long Island area. The case study illustrates the mathematical properties of the model using a comprehensive set of sensitivity analyses. These analyses also yield estimation on visitation, revenue and direct benefits (as measured by consumers' surplus) corresponding to user‐charge increases, park improvements and closings.