IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v19y2013i2p433-452.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating the Impact of Impaired Visibility on the Demand for Visits to National Parks

Author

Listed:
  • Neelam C. Poudyal

    (Natural Resource Recreation & Tourism, Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources, University of Georgia, 180 East Green Street, Athens, GA 30605, USA)

  • Bamadev Paudel

    (Nepal Rastra Bank, Baluwatar, Kathmandu, Nepal)

  • Gary T. Green

    (Natural Resource Recreation & Tourism, Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA)

Abstract

The authors fitted a number of time-series econometric models to monthly visitation data of a national park to examine the effect of impaired visibility on visitation demand. Using a polynomial distributed lag model, the long-run elasticity of demand with respect to visibility in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (GSMNP) was estimated. The GSMNP, the most visited national park in the USA, has significant air quality issues. Although the park has observed some fluctuation in visitation, the results indicate that the demand for visitation in general and for specific recreational visits are mean reverting and highly stable. Further, park visitation in a given month is significantly affected by the cumulative effect of the visibility condition in both the current and preceding months. Estimated elasticity reveals that a programme aiming to improve the average visibility by 10% (5.5 km) from the current level could result in an increase of roughly one million recreational visits annually, and that the increase would be higher for overnight visitors than for day visitors because of overnight visitors' relatively elastic demand. This demand model could assist park managers in their planning as they weigh the anticipated benefits of a visibility improvement programme against increased visitation and its associated costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Neelam C. Poudyal & Bamadev Paudel & Gary T. Green, 2013. "Estimating the Impact of Impaired Visibility on the Demand for Visits to National Parks," Tourism Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 433-452, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:19:y:2013:i:2:p:433-452
    DOI: 10.5367/te.2013.0204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/te.2013.0204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5367/te.2013.0204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher R. McIntosh & Neil Wilmot, 2011. "An Empirical Study of the Influences of Recreational Park Visitation: The Case of US National Park Service Sites," Tourism Economics, , vol. 17(2), pages 425-435, April.
    2. Edward R. Morey & William S. Breffle & Pamela A. Greene, 2001. "Two Nested Constant-Elasticity-of-Substitution Models of Recreational Participation and Site Choice: An ‘Alternatives’ Model and an ‘Expenditures’ Model," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(2), pages 414-427.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aiping Zhang & Linsheng Zhong & Yong Xu & Hui Wang & Lijuan Dang, 2015. "Tourists’ Perception of Haze Pollution and the Potential Impacts on Travel: Reshaping the Features of Tourism Seasonality in Beijing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Zhang, Ning & Ren, Ran & Zhang, Qiong & Zhang, Tao, 2020. "Air pollution and tourism development: An interplay," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Wei Zhang & Ziqiang Liu & Yujie Zhang & Elly Yaluk & Li Li, 2021. "The Impact of Air Quality on Inbound Tourist Arrivals over China Based on Grey Relational Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-19, October.
    4. Kyung-Min Nam & Heeyeun Yoon, 2019. "Air pollution in East Asia and its regional and socioeconomic impacts: an introduction," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 63(2), pages 249-254, October.
    5. Leask, Anna, 2016. "Visitor attraction management: A critical review of research 2009–2014," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 334-361.
    6. Xiaowei Xu & Daxin Dong & Yilun Wang & Shiying Wang, 2019. "The Impacts of Different Air Pollutants on Domestic and Inbound Tourism in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Wenjia-Jasmine Ruan & Junjae Lee & Hakjun Song, 2021. "Understanding Tourist Behavioural Intention When Faced with Smog Pollution: Focus on International Tourists to Beijing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Xiaoying Guo & Wei Wei & Yang Li & Lei-Ya Wang, 2019. "A Study of Different Types of Air Pollutants on the Efficiency of China’s Hotel Industry," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-13, November.
    9. Jongsik Yu & Kyeongheum Lee & Antonio Ariza-Montes & Alejandro Vega-Muñoz & Heesup Han, 2021. "How Do Air Quality Issues Caused by Particulate Matter Affect Consumers’ Emotional Response to Tourism Destinations and Willingness to Visit?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-13, October.
    10. Bo Zhou & Bi Yang & Yi Liu, 2019. "Compatible effect or competitive effect: An investigation of attraction spatial interdependency," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(8), pages 1182-1199, December.
    11. Daxin Dong & Xiaowei Xu & Wen Xu & Junye Xie, 2019. "The Relationship Between the Actual Level of Air Pollution and Residents’ Concern about Air Pollution: Evidence from Shanghai, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-18, November.
    12. Phisek Srinamphon & Sainatee Chernbumroong & Korrakot Yaibuathet Tippayawong, 2022. "The Effect of Small Particulate Matter on Tourism and Related SMEs in Chiang Mai, Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-9, July.
    13. Boyang Xu & Daxin Dong, 2020. "Evaluating the Impact of Air Pollution on China’s Inbound Tourism: A Gravity Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erda Wang & Jianhua Wei & Jiawei Zhu, 2017. "The effects of improving coastal park attributes on the recreation demand—A case study in Dalian China," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(1), pages 133-149, February.
    2. Richard Batley & Thijs Dekker, 2019. "The Intuition Behind Income Effects of Price Changes in Discrete Choice Models, and a Simple Method for Measuring the Compensating Variation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 337-366, September.
    3. Rice, William L. & Park, So Young & Pan, Bing & Newman, Peter, 2019. "Forecasting campground demand in US national parks," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 424-438.
    4. Leask, Anna, 2016. "Visitor attraction management: A critical review of research 2009–2014," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 334-361.
    5. Poudyal, Neelam C. & Paudel, Bamadev & Tarrant, Michael A., 2013. "A time series analysis of the impact of recession on national park visitation in the United States," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 181-189.
    6. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Marcella Veronesi, 2014. "Recovering Individual Preferences for Non-Market Goods: A Collective Travel-Cost Model," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(2), pages 438-457.
    7. Renato Perez Loyola & Erda Wang & Nannan Kang, 2021. "Economic valuation of recreational attributes using a choice experiment approach: An application to the Galapagos Islands," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(1), pages 86-104, February.
    8. Richards, Timothy J., 2004. "Price and Product-Line Rivalry Among Supermarket Retailers," Working Papers 28535, Arizona State University, Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management.
    9. Phaneuf, Daniel J. & Smith, V. Kerry, 2006. "Recreation Demand Models," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 671-761, Elsevier.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:19:y:2013:i:2:p:433-452. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.