Extensions of the Traditional Travel Cost Model of Non-Market Valuation to a Collective Framework: Evidence from the Field

Traditional recreation demand models do not make a distinction between a household and an individual as the reference decision-making unit, thus assuming that a family maximizes a single utility function, even if it consists of different individuals. Such models ignore the possibility of family members’ divergent preferences for non-market goods. This study proposes a novel approach—the “collective travel-cost model” (CTCM)—to eliciting individual preferences for a non-market good such as a recreation site by using revealed preference data. This approach accounts for the intra-household resource allocation and the role of each household member’s preferences. We show that the collective travel-cost model can be applied to estimating a recreation demand model that yields individual welfare estimates appropriate for policy analysis of non-market goods, such as the willingness-to-pay to access a recreation site. We find that how resources are distributed within the household reflects significant differences in welfare measures.