IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v18y2012i1p77-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visits to National Parks and Hiking Areas: A Panel Data Analysis of Their Socio-Demographic, Economic and Site Quality Determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Nerg
  • Jussi Uusivuori
  • Jarmo Mikkola
  • Marjo Neuvonen
  • Tuija Sievänen

Abstract

This study examines the impacts of socio-demographic, economic and park quality determinants on visits to nature areas. The authors apply panel data estimation techniques to Finnish data on 46 national parks and hiking areas between 2000 and 2008. The main results show that ‘visits to nature areas’, as a variable, reacts positively to the population size and quality features but negatively to gasoline prices and income level. Of the age classes, the population share of ‘young retirees’ – people aged between 65 and 74 – increased the number of visits to nature areas significantly, whereas the share of ‘baby boomers’ – people aged between 55 and 64 – was insignificant in explaining the number of visits. As the baby boomers are reaching retirement age, and assuming that their generation behaves like the young retirees in this study, the demand for national parks and hiking areas may increase substantially in the coming years. This will increase the pressure to expand current parks and establish new ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Nerg & Jussi Uusivuori & Jarmo Mikkola & Marjo Neuvonen & Tuija Sievänen, 2012. "Visits to National Parks and Hiking Areas: A Panel Data Analysis of Their Socio-Demographic, Economic and Site Quality Determinants," Tourism Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 77-93, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:18:y:2012:i:1:p:77-93
    DOI: 10.5367/te.2012.0104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/te.2012.0104
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5367/te.2012.0104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bowker, James Michael & Murphy, D. & Cordell, H. Ken & English, Donald B.K. & Bergstrom, John C. & Starbuck, C. Meghan & Betz, Carter J. & Green, Gary T., 2006. "Wilderness and Primitive Area Recreation Participation and Consumption: An Examination of Demographic and Spatial Factors," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 1-10, August.
    2. Weiler, Stephan, 2006. "A park by any other name: National Park designation as a natural experiment in signaling," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 96-106, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Munhyang (Moon) Oh & Seongseop (Sam) Kim & Youngjoon Choi, 2020. "Analyses of determinants of hiking tourism demands on the Jeju Olle hiking trail using zero-truncated negative binomial regression analysis," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(8), pages 1327-1343, December.
    2. José Manuel Ordóñez-de-Haro & Jordi Perdiguero & Juan-Luis Jiménez, 2020. "Fuel prices at petrol stations in touristic cities," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(1), pages 45-69, February.
    3. Becker, Nir & Farja, Yanay & Greenfeld, Asael & Markova-Nenova, Nonka & Wätzold, Frank, 2023. "A blueprint for addressing conflicts between ecotourism and farming from an economic perspective: The case of wintering crane conservation in the Hula Valley in Israel," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Taylor, R. Garth & McKean, John R. & Johnson, Donn M., 2010. "Measuring the Location Value of a Recreation Site," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 1-18.
    2. Rice, William L. & Park, So Young & Pan, Bing & Newman, Peter, 2019. "Forecasting campground demand in US national parks," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 424-438.
    3. Szabó, Andrea & Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2024. "National parks and economic development," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    4. Julie M. Mueller & John B. Loomis & Leslie Richardson & Ryan A. Fitch, 2022. "Valuing impacts of proximity to Saguaro National Park on house prices," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 1359-1372, September.
    5. Becker, Nir & Farja, Yanay & Greenfeld, Asael & Markova-Nenova, Nonka & Wätzold, Frank, 2023. "A blueprint for addressing conflicts between ecotourism and farming from an economic perspective: The case of wintering crane conservation in the Hula Valley in Israel," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    6. Mazzotta, Marisa & Wainger, Lisa & Sifleet, Samantha & Petty, J.Todd & Rashleigh, Brenda, 2015. "Benefit transfer with limited data: An application to recreational fishing losses from surface mining," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 384-398.
    7. Tessa Conroy & Stephan Weiler, 2019. "Local and social: entrepreneurs, information network effects, and economic growth," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 62(3), pages 681-713, June.
    8. Paul M. Jakus & Sherzod B. Akhundjanov, 2018. "Neither Boon nor Bane: The Economic Effects of a Landscape-Scale National Monument," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(3), pages 323-339.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:18:y:2012:i:1:p:77-93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.