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Determinants of demand for recreational walking trails in Ireland

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  • Kelley, Hugh
  • van Rensburg, Thomas M.
  • Jeserich, Nadine

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to explore how recreational walkers' marginal willingness to pay for, or travel to, Irish trails is affected by trail attributes. We use principal components data reduction, z-score data normalization, and OLS regression analyses on two stated preference datasets covering 302 Irish and foreign visitors, and recreational experts, across 15 sites in Ireland between 2005 and 2010. Findings reveal that endowment and infrastructure attributes emerge as primary influences affecting demand. In particular, flat or valley-endowed trails, and infrastructure, including signage, amenities, and maps or leaflets positively affect demand. Additionally, robustness checks suggest farmer access agreements may also be important. On the other hand, we find that mountain or hill, forest, and coastal or lake trails, as well as income, seem to be negatively associated with demand. Finally, we are able to use these in-sample results to extrapolate demand for a set of new relatively unimproved trails in an out-of-sample demand prediction exercise.

Suggested Citation

  • Kelley, Hugh & van Rensburg, Thomas M. & Jeserich, Nadine, 2016. "Determinants of demand for recreational walking trails in Ireland," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 173-186.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:52:y:2016:i:c:p:173-186
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2015.05.028
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    2. Diogo C. Pavão & João Porteiro & Maria A. Ventura & Lurdes Borges Silva & António Medeiros & Ana Moniz & Mónica Moura & Francisco Moreira & Luís Silva, 2021. "Land cover along hiking trails in a nature tourism destination: the Azores as a case study," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16504-16528, November.
    3. Dimara, Efthalia & Manganari, Emmanouela & Skuras, Dimitris, 2017. "Don't change my towels please: Factors influencing participation in towel reuse programs," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 425-437.
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    5. Svobodova Kamila & Monteiro Luis & Vojar Jiri & Gdulova Katerina, 2019. "Can trail characteristics influence visitor numbers in natural protected areas? A quantitative approach to trail choice assessment," Environmental & Socio-economic Studies, Sciendo, vol. 7(2), pages 10-20, June.
    6. Sung-Kwon Hong & Ju-Mi Kim & Hyun-Kil Jo & Sang-Woo Lee, 2018. "Monetary Valuation of Urban Forest Attributes in Highly Developed Urban Environments: An Experimental Study Using a Conjoint Choice Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-22, July.
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