Date of Award:

5-1976

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Economics and Finance

Department name when degree awarded

Economics

Committee Chair(s)

John E. Keith

Committee

John E. Keith

Committee

Herbert Fullerton

Committee

Steve McCool

Abstract

A consumer characteristic profile of the snowmobile owners in Utah was compiled and compared to the general population in Utah and the United States. Other statistics were compiled which included user preferences of snowmobiling sites and machine characteristics.

Data were collected by a mail survey of snowmobilers during the 1974-75 snowmobiling season. Approximately 315 questionnaires were analyzed. Additional data were collected from the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation.

Total economic rent values were estimated for 58 sites in Utah. These values were then separated into location and quality values. This was done by reallocating trips to sites by means of a least cost programming technique. The value attributed to location was subtracted from the total and the residual is attributed to site quality. Ten site characteristics were chosen to analyze site quality. Stepwise regression was used to show this relationship.

Increasing site carrying capacity was undertaken in the model to show the effect on site quality. An exposition factor for number of trips was derived by using the largest use month, the month with the greatest number of trips recorded. Comparisons were then made between the unexpanded data to that and the expanded data.

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