Leisure and the Net Opportunity Cost of Travel Time in Recreation Demand Analysis: An Application to Gros Morne National Park

Abstract

Using count data models that account for zero-truncation, overdispersion, and endogenous stratification, we estimate the value of access to recreational parks. The focus is on the empirical estimation of the proportion of the wage rate that best approximates park visitors' opportunity cost of travel time within the cost of their trip and its effects on estimated consumer surplus. The fraction of hourly earnings that corresponds to the opportunity cost of travel time is endogenously estimated as a function of visitor characteristics, rather than fixed exogenously. In this case, which deals with a relatively remote recreational site, the relevant opportunity cost of time for most visitors appears to represent a smaller fraction of their wage rate than commonly assumed in previous similar studies.

JEL classification codes:

• Q24
• Q26

Key words:

• opportunity cost of travel time
• endogenous stratification
• on-site sampling
• overdispersion
• recreation demand
• travel cost method