The objective of this dissertation is to measure the monetary values of public Great Lakes beaches using the travel cost approach. To decide which econometric model to use, Monte Carlo simulations were developed, and results showed that the nested logit model was robust and reliable. To collect beach use data, a two-stage survey of over 29,000 people was conducted from 2011 to 2012. A mail survey went out in 2011 to identify people who participated in beach recreation with a random sample from Michigan's driver license list. Respondents who said they visited a Great Lakes beach since June 1, 2010 were invited to a follow-up web survey about trips to public Great Lakes beaches in the summer of 2011. A repeated nested logit model with a participation hurdle was estimated for the day trip data. The estimated beach recreation participation rate was 58% for adults living in Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and an estimated 20.9 million day trips were taken by Michigan adults to public Great Lakes beaches in the summer of 2011. The value of access to a public beach for a day trip was estimated to be $32-$39 per person per trip in 2011 dollars. Access to all Lake Michigan public beaches, in Michigan, was estimated to be worth over $400 million per season for day trips for adults living in Lower Peninsula of Michigan. To value long trips of four nights or more, a model was developed allowing people to visit combinations of single and multiple sites on a trip. The resulting values were about $53 per person per beach day for access to a site for a trip of four nights or longer. The more common approach of using the main destination for multi-site trips has larger welfare measures compared to the approach permitting combinations of multiple sites to be visited.
Read
