An Example of a Gravity Model to Estimate Recreation Travel

Abstract

An extensive data base provided for the Texas Outdoor Recreation Plan (Texas, 1974) has provided an opportunity to implement the estimation of a gravity model to explain recreational travel and participation in Texas. This paper concentrates on implementation methodology and the nature of results obtained from this study. It was found that a major task in this implementation was to make physically observed measurements serve as proxies for parameters specified by the gravity model. Another major task lay in choosing a reasonable set of meaningful predictor variables. With some exceptions, model parameter estimates agreed with expectations. Recreation travel and participation estimates showed some rather large discrepancies with observed travel but appeared to be of adequate quality to be used for policy and planning purposes, particularly when used in conjunction with other estimates.