Assessing the recreational demand for agricultural land in Finland

Abstract

It is widely assumed that the scenic attractiveness and other public good aspects of agricultural land can be utilized as a source of livelihood in rural areas in the form of recreation and tourism. In this study we use two approaches to consider whether agricultural landscapes are preferred as a destination for recreation (day trips) and rural tourism (overnight trips). We first analyse the choice of recreation site type based on a model that aggregates sites using the presence of agricultural land as an aggregation variable. Population survey data on recreation trips reveal an association between the respondent's living environment, recreational activities and visit characteristics and the probability of choosing a destination with agricultural land. Second, we also estimate the demand functions for trips to agricultural sites and other destination types to consider whether the presence of agricultural land, as opposed to other land use categories, increases the number of trips and the benefits of recreation. The results suggest that agricultural landscapes are inferior to alternative site types in terms of per-trip benefits. However, agricultural landscapes are associated with high annual benefits because of the high rate of visitation.

Identifying and prioritising services in European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

“…A Eurobarometer survey on ''Europeans on Holiday (1997Holiday ( -1998'' showed that 23% of Europeans chose the countryside as their most preferred tourism destination (EC 1998) and ''new'' forms of tourism in rural and regional settings are emerging and growing almost three times as fast as the classic tourism market (EC 2002a). Fleischer and Tsur (2000) and Pouta (2006) also provide examples which illustrate how agricultural landscapes attract tourists. This trend is linked to the aesthetic and cultural historic values of landscapes (EC 2002a).…”

“…In many parts of Europe this process is on-going, but the increasing importance of agro-tourism (Fleischer and Tsur 2000;Pouta 2006), linked to an appreciation of the aesthetic value and cultural heritage of old and relatively intact agricultural landscapes (EC 2000(EC , 2002a, explains the mixed trend across Europe from 1990 to present for these services (Fig. 1).…”

Heterogeneous preferences for agricultural landscape improvements in southern Finland

“…Meanwhile, in northern and eastern parts, the agricultural landscape is facing the pressure of afforestation. In its current state, the agricultural landscape in Finland still provides public goods for people as a close-to-home recreation environment, accounting for 180 million day trips annually (Pouta & Ovaskainen, 2006). Although currently only 8% of the land area of the country consists of open agricultural land, the majority of the agricultural environments are located in the most densely populated southern parts of the country, and their importance is therefore considerable.…”

Factors Affecting the Number of Visitors in National Parks in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria

“…Furthermore, the authors combined their own predictions of visitor numbers with a mean value estimate per recreational visit in the given area [12]. Choice models predicting recreational behaviour at the individual level are another commonly utilised approach [26][27][28]. Randle & Hoye [29] employ a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, which they apply to monthly US national park attendance data to measure the effect of recession on the number of visitors to national parks.…”