Coastal coral reefs, especially in the Florida Keys, are declining at a disturbing rate. Marine ecologists and reef scientists have emphasized the importance of establishing nonmarket values of coral reefs to assess the cost effectiveness of coral reef management and remediation programs. The purpose of this paper is to develop a travel cost-contingent valuation model of demand for trips to the Florida Keys focusing on willingness to pay (WTP) to preserve the current water quality and health of the coral reefs. The stated and revealed preference models allow the marginal valuation of recreationists to adjust depending on current and planned trip commitments in valuing nonmarginal policy changes in recreational opportunities. The integrated model incorporates key factors for establishing baseline amenity values for tourist dive sites, including perceptions of reef quality and dive conditions, the role of substitute sites, and the quality and availability of tourist facilities and recreation opportunities. The travel cost and WTP model differ in identifying critical variables and provide insight into the adjustment of trip decisions across alternative destination sites and the valuation of trips. In contrast to the travel cost model, a measure of the availability of substitute sites and total recreation activities does not have a significant impact on WTP valuations reported by snorkelers. Snorkelers engage in a relatively focused set of activities, suggesting that these recreationists may not shift expenditures to other sites or other recreation activities in the Florida Keys when confronted with increased access costs for the snorkeling experience.
In Florida, United States, the Caribbean spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, supports an important commercial fishery and also perhaps the most intensive recreational fishery of any lobster species, with sales of recreational lobster fishing permits exceeding 100 000 annually. For the past decade, we have used mail surveys of recreational lobster license holders to estimate spatially explicit landings and fishing effort when recreational fishers are most active-during the state's "Special Two-Day Sport Season", which takes place just before the opening of the commercial season, and during the first month of the regular recreational season, which coincides with the commercial season. without trend. Fishing effort during the regular season over the same period has ranged from 261 000 to 514 000 person-days, and landings have ranged from 434 to 825 t. Fishing effort has shown a marginally statistically significant decreasing trend, the result of a progressive decrease in effort since 1999. The largest proportion of both fishing effort and landings was concentrated along the south-east coast. Despite the recent decrease in landings, the proportion of total landings made by the recreational fishery has increased. From 1993 through 1998, the fishery was responsible for c. 30% of commercial landings; by 2001, that percentage increased to nearly 40%. Such a shift in landings away from the commercial trap fishery toward the recreational fishery was recognised as a potential but unintended effect of the ongoing management plan of restricting effort in the commercial trap fishery. Our 2001 surveys revealed that recreational lobster fishers spent more on a person-day basis than the general visitor to the Florida Keys did, but less than those visitors using the region's coral reefs. Consequently, managers must establish management strategies that allow the coexistence of this resource's user groups and also incorporate the social and environmental concerns of nonuser groups.
\\i: examine ethnici~and individual trip taking behavior associated with MIural resource based recreation in the Florida Keys. \Ve estimate trip demand using the travel cost method. \\e then extend this model with a vanilla paran)cter adaptation to test the congruency of demand and economic vaIue XI-IIw hite and Hispanic user subgroups. f&r findings indicate significant differences in price response leading to divergent per-trip consumer surplus and price elrtuticiw between these ovo groups. These differences raise important distribution and quit? concerns with respect to the possible futureuseof pricing policies like user fees.
This chapter describes the USA's National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE), its operational design, and how that design is implemented. Patterns of participation in outdoor recreation in the USA are then discussed, based on the 2000-01 NSRE. It is shown that outdoor recreation continues to be enormously popular across American society, with 97% of Americans aged 16 years or older reporting participation to some extent in outdoor recreation during any given year. Traditional activities popular in the 1960s are still popular, but many new forms of activity have been added as technology improves access, comfort, and what is known and possible.
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