Central
and Northern California Outdoor Recreation Market Analysis
Draft
Report
By:
Patrick Tierney Ph.D.
Erik
Rosegard Ph.D.
Department
of Recreation and Leisure Studies
February
19, 2002
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
This report describes the findings of a cooperative research project
between the USDA Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at San Francisco State University.
The overall purpose of this project was to gain insights into outdoor
recreation (ORC) interests, participation, satisfaction and desired
characteristics of federal recreation lands and facilities from primarily
residents of central and northern California and the NorCal East district of the
BLM.
A telephone survey was used to gather data. Three data samples were collected and compared.
The Central and Northern California (CNC)
sample was a random selection of all working residential phone numbers in the
region consisting of San Luis Obispo, Kern and Inyo Counties on the south, and
all counties north of these within the state of California.
It provides a representative perspective on the entire region.
The NENW sample was randomly drawn from the communities within far
northeastern California, northwestern Washoe County, Nevada, and Klamath Falls,
Oregon. These communities are in
close proximity to the BLM NorCal East district and supply many of the
recreationists who visit it. A
final data set was the FP sample, randomly drawn from working residential phone
numbers in smaller rural communities that are in close proximity to Central
Sierra national forests , including Fresno, South Lake Tahoe, Sonora, Bishop,
Mammoth Lakes, Markleyville, Placerville, Bakersfield, Truckee and Bridgeport.
This sample provides a perspective of residents from rural,
forest-proximate communities.
A total of 1,203 interviews were completed, with 617 in the CNC sample,
476 in the NENW sample and 110 in the FP sample. Highlights of the findings are shown below:
·
At least 80% of
all respondents had some interest in outdoor recreation
·
70% of all
respondents participated in outdoor recreation (ORC) in last year
·
78% of FP, 72% of
CNC and 70% of NENW respondents participated in ORC.
·
Most of the NENW
respondents (55%) participated in ORC on federal lands.
·
32% Of NENW
sample visited federal lands and did ORC in NENW region.
·
Over 18% of NENW
sample visited federal lands at least 10 times in past year.
·
72% of NENW
sample were at least very satisfied with most recent ORC.
·
The most popular
ORC activities on federal land in NENW region were:
Day hiking, camping, fishing, site seeing and viewing wildlife.
·
ORC activity
participation and primary reasons for visiting federal lands were similar for
all three samples, except NENW sample was more likely to horseback ride, ride
OHVs and hunt birds.
·
Groups visiting
federal NENW lands had a mean average of 1.4 youth and a total of 4.9 persons.
Median was no youth and 2 adults.
·
4.5% of groups
had 10 or more persons in the travel party.
·
Average days away
from home were 4.6, with 30% traveling for 1 day or less.
·
For the NENW
sample average spending per group was $361.31, compared to $503.19 for CNC
sample. This broke down to $134.13
for food/drink, $97.79 for transportation, $83.90 for lodging/camping,
$27.30 gifts and $18.19 for tourist services.
·
Average
expenditure per group per day was $78.54 for NENW sample.
·
Most frequently
used information sources for last trip on federal lands in CNC were:
Roadside displays/signs, friends, agency flyer, internet and agency staff
persons.
·
Most helpful
information sources were: friends, agency staff, guidebooks, radio/TV and agency
flyer.
·
Almost all NENW
sample respondents (92%) who participated in ORC in last year, planned to visit
federal ORC lands in the CNC within the next year.
·
The most highly
desired characteristics of federal ORC lands were: Employees who are courteous,
very well maintained facilities, wide variety of scenic views, visitors who are
courteous and non-crowded areas. There were some differences between the three samples.
·
Specialized
information about the NENW region showed that 33.8% of
NENW respondents visited federal ORC lands in just NENW region in the
last year.
·
Over 66% were at
least very satisfied with the experience.
·
NENW respondents
had an average of 4.2 days away from home on a trip that visited the NENW
region. The median was 2 days.
They spent an average of 3.9 days on federal lands in the NENW region.
·
Over 70% of
non-residents of the NENW sample (from
towns other than Susanville, Alturas and Gerlack) visited region in last 5
years.
·
On their most
recent visit over 75% staying in campgrounds and 24.7% stayed in a motel.
·
Over 75% visited
a recreation site on federal land in the NENW region.
A list of site names is provided.
A series of questions asked respondents to agree or disagree with
resource management issue statements developed by the NorCal BLM staff.
Below is a summary of responses, broken out between residents and
non-residents of NENW.
·
The majority (60%
residents, 79% non-residents) agreed that OHVs should be limited to existing
trails in the region.
·
Over 82% of
non-residents and 68% of residents agreed that maintaining the natural
undeveloped appearance and vistas of the NENW region was extremely important.
·
Only 37% of
non-residents and 44% of residents felt that local organizations should work to
increase the number of public land visitors and tourist revenue in the region.
·
About a third of
residents and 22% of non-residents agreed there should be more OHV trails in the
NENW region.
·
Only 24.4% of
residents and 26.6% of non-residents agreed that there should be more tourist
facility development on public lands in the NENW region.
Survey respondent demographic characteristics varied widely and included
all adult age, education and income groups.
Most were white non-Hispanic and employed full time.