Traders and Nontraders in Recreational Destination Choice

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the application of the mass transportation traders concept to spatial choice research in recreational boating. Given a set of two lakes, traders were defined as those individuals whose lake choice situation involved a choice of visiting a closer, less attractive lake or incurring the disutility of additional travel in order to visit a more attractive lake. Non-traders were those individuals whose choice situations did not involve such a trade-off, (1) the more attractive lake was also the more accessible or (2) there were no differences in lake accessibility, lake attractiveness or both. Using data from a survey of 430 recreational boaters, 52 percent of the respondents were classified as nontraders. Logit models of lake choice were estimated by maximum likelihood regression. The results indicate that a bias may exist in choice model parameter estimates and, consequently, attribute tradeoff functions if the data for nontraders are included when estimating the model. The relative value of lake attractiveness as a choice determinant was substantially lower in analyses from which the nontrader data had been removed.

KEYWORDS:

• Travel
• traders
• spatial choice
• boating