Recreation Expenditures and Opportunity Theory: The Case of Illinois

Abstract

With the exception of measures reflecting travel distance, travel time, or travel cost, the literature devoted to the understanding and prediction of the economic impact of recreation has oversimplified the characterization of the spatial or locational aspects of the distribution of opportunities facing decision makers. In this paper, the relative effects of site characteristics are compared to the spatial context within which recreators make destination choices in accounting for variations in per person per day expenditures. The results show that for a large portion of Illinois households the agglomerative effects and contextual effects of spatial structure are the principal factors influencing per person per day expenditure levels.