Recreational Travel: A Review and Pilot Study

This paper has a dual purpose; first, to examine the methods that have been used for analyzing patterns of recreational travel, and second, to conduct a pilot study to examine flow of campers to a sample of Ontario provincial parks. The models examined are the gravity model, the intervening model, and the systems theory model. Basically, although there are many variations, the gravity model relates recreational travel to population, attractiveness of the recreational area, and distance (or time). The intervening opportunities model assumes that the traffic generated between a population area and a recreational area is directly related to the number of opportunities in the recreation area, and is inversely related to the number of opportunities closer, in travel time, to the population area that the recreation area. The systems model uses theory borrowed from electrical engineering.