Estimating the Recreational Value of Mountain Biking Sites in Scotland Using Count Data Models

Abstract

Mountain biking is a relatively recent forest recreational activity and this paper estimates the use value associated with purpose-built centres in southern Scotland. An on-site survey is used to generate visitor frequency that can be related to travel costs and participants' socio-economic characteristics. Count data regressions provide maximum likelihood estimates of model coefficients used to estimate expected per-trip economic surplus. The estimated consumer surplus for the Glentress biking range is £80 per visit. An aggregate value of £9.6 million is obtained, with an estimated 120,000 visits annually. While appreciable relative to the site investment outlay, data limitations lead the authors to caution against extrapolating this value over a range of substitute sites planned by the UK's Forestry Commission.

Keywords

travel cost consumer surplus count data mountain biking Scotland

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bateman

Jones

(2003), ‘Contrasting conventional and multi-level modelling approaches to meta-analysis: Expectation consistency in UK woodland recreation values’, Land Economics, Vol 79, No 2, pp 235–258.

Cameron

Trivedi

(1986), ‘Econometric models based on count data: Comparisons and applications of some estimators and tests’, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Vol 1, pp 29–53.

Chakraborty

Keith

(2000), ‘Estimating the recreation demand and economic value of mountain biking in Moab, Utah: An application of count data models’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Vol 43, No 4, pp 461–469.

Creel

Loomis

(1990), ‘Theoretical and empirical advantages of truncated count data estimators for analysis of deer hunting in California’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, May, pp 434–441.

DEFRA (2003), Economic Analysis of Forestry Policy in England, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London, http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/evaluation/forestry/.

Fix

Loomis

Eichhorn

(2000), ‘Endogenously chosen travel costs and the travel cost model: An application to mountain biking at Moab, Utah’, Applied Economics, Vol 32, No 10, pp 1227–1231.

Fix

Loomis

(1998), ‘Comparing the economic value of mountain biking estimated using revealed and stated preference’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Vol 41, pp 227–236.

Garrod

Willis

(1999), Economic Valuation of the Environment: Methods and Case Studies, 1st edition, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Parsons

(2003), ‘The travel cost method’, in Champ

P.A.

Boyle

K.J.

Brown

T.C.

, eds, A Primer on Non-Market Valuation, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, chapter 9.

10.

Pearce

(1994), ‘Assessing the returns to the economy and to society from investments in forestry’, in Forestry Expansion: Study of Technical, Economic and Ecological Factors, Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.

11.

Shrestha

Seidl

Moraes

(2002), ‘Value of recreational fishing in the Brazilian Pantanal: A travel cost analysis using count data models’, Ecological Economics, Vol 42, pp 289–299.

12.

Ward

Beal

(2000), Valuing Nature with Travel Cost Models: A Manual, 1st edition, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

13.

Willis

Garrod

(1991), ‘An individual travel cost method of evaluating forest recreation’, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol 42, No 1, pp 33–42.