A portfolio choice model of the demand for recreational trips

Consumer choices of recretational trip-making involve a number of related decisions, including destination, trip frequency, length and timing of trip(s), and choice of mode(s). Previous analyses have generally developed tractable discrete choice models by limiting their focus to one or two decisions and conditioning on the others. The analysis presented in this paper takes a more general perspective by assuming that consumers choose one out of a set of trip portfolios which are made up of alternative destinations, trip frequencies and durations. The model is applied to recreational fishing activities, and produces estimation results that are consistent with the hypothesis of random utility maximization. Choice elasticities are calculated and indicate that portfolio demands are fairly elastic with respect to changes in water qualities and travel costs.