Using Count Data and Ordered Models in National Forest Recreation Demand Analysis

This research addresses the need to improve our knowledge on the demand for national forests for recreation and offers an in-depth data analysis supported by the complementary use of count data and ordered models. From a policy-making perspective, while count data models enable the estimation of monetary welfare measures, ordered models allow for the wider use of the database and provide a more flexible analysis of data. The main purpose of this article is to analyse the individual forest recreation demand and to derive a measure of its current use value. To allow a more complete analysis of the forest recreation demand structure the econometric approach supplements the use of count data models with ordered category models using data obtained by means of an on-site survey in the Bussaco National Forest (Portugal). Overall, both models reveal that travel cost and substitute prices are important explanatory variables, visits are a normal good and demographic variables seem to have no influence on demand. In particular, estimated price and income elasticities of demand are quite low. Accordingly, it is possible to argue that travel cost (price) in isolation may be expected to have a low impact on visitation levels.