Visitor Expenditure: The Case of Cycle Recreation and Tourism

Abstract

The paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the economic impact of sports tourism using the case study of a cycle network in the North East of England, UK, used for tourism, recreation and utility purposes. It explores the foundations of economic impacts of such a network and focuses on underlying behavioural responses of cyclists and their spending. The paper develops a model of expenditure on the basis of 383 travel diaries. The findings confirm that incomes, group sizes and durations of activity are integrally linked determinants of expenditure. The expenditures and durations of cycle trips are linked to preferences for longer journeys. This has implications for planners of routes to attract all types of cyclists from the most casual leisure trip to racing cyclists. Furthermore, the research findings infer that as extra-network and intra-network tourism groups cycling on the network do not behave differently they therefore should both be targeted by sports and tourism agencies.