A Day-Use Park Visitation Model

Abstract

One aspect of rational park planning is developing site specific models that give insights into the structure of relations that determine participation at a given park which is part of a system. The object of this research was to achieve a conceptually and structurally more meaningful site specific model. In particular, this study is concerned with the development of a model to explain and predict day-use visitation. The model is site specific in that it deals directly with use of individual sites in Saskatchewan.¹ Alternative recreation opportunities and park attractiveness are related to quantitatively defined explanatory variables considered in formulating an appropriate estimation framework. The “alternative factor” is defined in terms of the location and the number of alternative sites available to the visitors, while attractiveness is expressed as a function of the physical characteristics of the facilities and the services offered at a site. This analysis considers a set of twelve provincial and national parks. Multiple step-wise regression is used to derive a relationship between visitation figures (the dependent variable) and the explanatory variables—population, distance, alternative recreation opportunities, and attractiveness. The results of the analysis indicate that a particular combination of the variables, population and distance, explains a large amount of the variance of the day-use data. An application of the model is given to illustrate that estimated use for a proposed site with a known level of development may be derived when given the characteristics of a population origin and the intervening opportunities surrounding it. The concluding remarks of the paper focus on the possible significance of this model for planning application.