Heterogeneous Visitors and the Spatial Limits of the Travel Cost Model

Recently, a series of papers have attempted to accommodate the diversity of visitors in travel cost models by separating monetary outlays for recreation into two categories: on-site costs and long distance travel costs. One of the major motivations behind these on-site cost models is to solve the problem of spatial limits of the travel cost model identified by Smith and Kopp (1980). This paper empirically examines if the on-site cost model effectively deals with issue of spatial limits. Our findings indicate that serious spatial limits may still exist in the on-site cost model.As a feasible remedy, we propose an alternative classification of visitors. Econometric implementation of this classification scheme with data from a survey of trout fishermen in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem suggests the approach both increases the explanatory power of the on-site cost model, and to a large extent, alleviates the spatial limits of the on-site cost approach.