Incidental Trips and Aquarium Benefits

Abstract

This recreation demand study empirically tests the complementary nature of destination travel and single-day trips. Day-trips to North Carolina aquariums are treated as incidental to the primary destination trips to the North Carolina coast. Visitors would not have taken day-trips if the primary purposes of the vacation trips had not been taken first. Applying the individual travel cost method, a demand function is estimated with Poisson regression. The consumer surplus is $21.73 per aquarium trip.

Keywords:

• Recreation Demand
• Travel Cost Method
• Count-DATA
• Aquariums
• Incidental Consumption
• Outdoor Recreation