Abstract
Travel cost method has been used to evaluate recreational benefits. This method needs individual information about visit on recreation site. In general, these are two ways to gain such information. One is on-site survey, the other is off-site survey. But on-site data bok information about visitors who had never visited the site during the survey periods. So, using off-site data, we discussed travel cost methods estimation and benefit evaluation. We set up 3 models; model A contained 0 visits data, model B excluded 0 visits data, model C excluded Ovisits data and considered truncation, and compared them using AIC. Results exhibited model A was more desirable than the other two models. We also used model A to evaluate recreation benefits derived by individual visitors to the Kurondo park and Else Hoshida park. Result estimated average consumer surplus per visit is 3, 125 and 1, 851 yen and the total economic value of recreational benefits was estimated at 7.2 and 16.1 million yen annually. The conclusion is that not using 0 visits data in travel cost model lead to overestimates recreational benefit.
