Buletin USAMV-CN, 63/2006 (-) ISSN 1454-2382

ESTIMATION OF THE RECREATION VALUES OF SOME ROMANIAN PARKS BY TRAVEL COST METHOD
Dumitras Diana Elena*, Simona Dragoi**
*University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Romania ** Forest Research and Management Planning Institute, Bucharest email: ddumitras@usamvcluj.ro, si_dragoi@yahoo.co.uk Key words: recreation values, travel cost method, consumer surplus
Abstract. Recreation values of some Romanian national and natural park are measured using the travel cost method. Data are provided by a survey conducted in summer 2005 at five parks in Romania. The estimated consumer surplus varies by park. The findings of this study would be important for management decisions in the Romanian national and natural parks and could serve as a reference in similar cases.

INTRODUCTION

Lately, non-market valuation of the environment and natural resources is among the most debated topics in the economics literature (Champ et al., 2003). Researchers developed several approaches to capture the non-market values associated to environmental goods. The non-market valuation methods permit researchers to reveal considerable information about the values tourists place on environmental goods and about tourists preferences for using them. The estimated use values may constitute valuable information in the process of allocating funds from different sources. The economic values of national and natural parks may constitute key-elements in the decision processes regarding the development and management of this category of protected areas. Unfortunately, there is a lack of information on economic values of national and natural parks at the national level. Managers have little information regarding the recreation use of protected areas. We apply revealed preferences valuation methods, as a group of non-market valuation, to determine the recreation values of some Romanian parks. The main objective of this paper is to estimate the use values of some Romanian parks using the travel cost method (TCM). The recreation use values of the parks are measured in terms of consumer surplus (CS). Tourists perceive the value of parks in different ways due to their personal characteristics, such as age, education, gender, income, experience of using the parks. Demand shifters are taken into consideration to track the pattern of demand for recreation visits.
MATERIAL AND METHOD

The data were collected using a survey. All users were sampled during the weekends of July, August and September 2005. Five Carpathian parks were selected for the study: Bucegi Natural Park, Portile de Fier Natural Park, Piatra Craiului National Park, Cozia National Park and Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park. A total of 357 surveys were collected: 130 at Bucegi, 41 at Portile de Fier, 67 at Cozia, 59 at Domogled and 60 at Piatra Craiului. Respondents were asked the number of trips they

had taken the previous two years (2003 and 2004) along with the number of trips they had taken during the year of the survey (2005). The survey concluded with demographic questions including income, age, education and gender. Table 1 provides the means of the key variables used in the econometric analysis. Data indicate that Bucegi is the most visited park, followed by Portile de Fier and Cozia. It is notable the fact that in each park at least 20 tourists indicated 0 as the number of visits to the park where they were approached, their age being scatter across the sample. This would indicate the fact that some tourists visit the parks for the first time.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the variables used in the regression model Variable Mean Std. dev. Min Max Number of visits Bucegi 7.22 15.14 0 100 Cozia 5.54 11.10 0 60 Domogled 2.90 5.17 0 27 Piatra Craiului 3.32 8.23 0 57 Portile de Fier 5.56 13.13 0 60 Travel cost (RON) Bucegi 55.65 60.18 1.50 300.00 Cozia 41.20 60.61 0 300.00 Domogled 106.74 82.69 1.00 320.00 Piatra Craiului 35.69 44.00 1.00 200.00 Portile de Fier 63.61 67.43 1.00 300.00 Age (years) 35.50 11.49 18 73 Income (RON) 1652.95 1046.61 425.00 4250.50

A variety of sources discusses the theoretical, empirical and econometric aspects of recreation demand models. The travel cost model is a demand-based model for use of a recreation park. Considering the recreation demand for a park, the individuals trip demand model can be specified as a function of travel cost and a set of socioeconomic characteristics. The travel cost method uses information about individuals actual travel cost to determine the consumer surplus through the determination of a demand curve. The consumer surplus is estimated using the demand function. The basic count data travel cost model is a Poisson regression. The Poisson distribution defines the probability of observing an individual taking r trips in a period as: exp( ) r P(r ) = , where r is the number of visits taken in the period of study (2003-2005) and is the expected number of trips which takes strictly positive values. The parameters are estimated using maximum likelihood. The likelihood of observing the actual pattern of visits is given by Champ et al. (2003) N exp( ) rn n n , L=
n =1

r!

rn !

where rn is the number of trips taken by an individual. The per-trip consumer surplus for an individual who takes a trip to park i can be calculated as CSi = 1 / tc i , where the denominator is the estimated coefficient for travel cost for the specific park.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The number of visits made by an individual during 2003-2005 is used as a dependent variable. Travel costs are the most important independent variables that lead to the determination of the consumer surplus. Estimations of travel cost vary in different research. In this study, transportation costs were considered as travel cost. First, two Poisson models are estimated to test whether the parks are different. The dependent variable is the number of visits to the park. The independent variable is the travel cost, which varies among individuals. Model 1 is estimated with a constant and represents all five parks. Model 2 includes one travel cost variable for each park. It is estimated without a constant and includes dummy variables for each park (1 if is the specific park and 0 otherwise). The estimation results are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Estimation results Variable Model 1 Model 2 a Constant 1.9074 (0.0299) Bucegi 2.2151 (0.0440)a Cozia 1.8346 (0.0625)a Domogled 1.4347 (0.1169)a Piatra Craiului 1.2953 (0.1918)a Portile de Fier 2.0047 (0.0953)a a Travel cost -0.045 (0004) Bucegi -0.0049 (0.0007)a Cozia -0.0034 (0.0011)a Domogled -0.0037 (0.0010)a Piatra Craiului -0.0029 (0.0019)b Portile de Fier -0.0053 (0.0014) a Log likelihood -2632.614 -2539.7932 No. of observations 356 356 Standard errors shown in parantheses a significant at the 1% level or above b significant at the 5% level or above

A likelihood ratio test was performed to test if the parks are significantly different. The null hypothesis that the travel cost equal across parks is rejected. The likelihood ratio is 185.64 and exceeds the 5% critical value for 2(8) distribution: 15.51. The likelihood ratio test results indicate that for further steps of the study the travel cost variable should be individualized by park. All estimated parameters are significant at 1% level, excepting the travel cost estimate for Piatra Craiului. The coefficients on travel costs are positive and significant in both models, indicating that the demand function is downward sloping. In other words, tourists take fewer trips as travel cost increases. To capture the shifters effect on recreation demand, we have estimated a third model. Two new independent variables are included in the regression: income and age. These demographic characteristics are constrained to be equal across parks. Estimation results are summarized in Table 3. The coefficients on demographic variable are positive and significant. Results indicate that tourists take more trips as they get older and their income increases.

Table 3. Estimation result - consumer surplus (RON) Variable Model 3 Constant Bucegi 1.2443 (0.0960) a Cozia 0.6745 (0.1089) a Domogled 0.4870 (0.1469)a Piatra Craiului 0.3063 (0.1281)a Portile de Fier 0.9990 (0.1276)a Travel cost Bucegi -0.0052 (0.0007)a Cozia -0.0036 (0.0012)a Domogled -0.0047 (0.0011)a Piatra Craiului -0.0034 (0.0019)b Portile de Fier -0.0063 (0.0014)a Age 0.0239 (0.0019)a Income 0.0001 (0.0001)a Log likelihood -2381.7189 No. of observations 351 Standard errors shown in parantheses a significant at the 1% level or above b significant at the 10% level or above

The effect of income and age variables is observable by comparing the consumer surplus values calculated based on the estimation results of Model 2 and Model 3 (Table 4). The CS values decrease when income and age variables are taken into consideration.
CS / Park Bucegi Cozia Domogled Piatra Craiului Portile de Fier Table 4. Consumer surplus Model 2 Model 3 202.45 190.90 291.57 275.00 269.10 210.53 344.44 294.25 188.26 157.05

CONCLUSIONS

It would be of high interest to investigate further the data. First steps would be the investigation of other recreation demand shifters. Nevertheless, the results of this research provide a first sight of the recreation values of some Romanian protected areas. Economic valuation studies are useful for managers of recreation areas, but also for policy makers. These results may help to determine the importance of recreational areas
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Champ, P.A., K.J. Boyle, T. C. Brown, 2003, A Primer On Nonmarket Valuation. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands 2. Englin, J, J. Loomis, A Gonzalez-Caban, 2001, The Dynamic Path Of Recreational Values Following A Forest Fire: A Comparative Analysis Of States In The Intermountain West, Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 31: 1937-1844 3. Greene, W. H., 2003, Econometric Analysis. 5th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 4. Hellerstein, D., R. Mendelsohn, 1993, A Theoretical Foundation For Count Data Models. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 75: 604-611 5. Shrestha, R.K, A.F. Seidl, A.S. Moraes, 2002, Value Of Recreational Fishing In The Brazilian Pantanal: A Travel Cost Analysis Using Count Data Models. Ecological Economics, 42: 289-299