Mapping recreational visits and values of European National Parks by combining statistical modelling and unit value transfer

We apply the model to: (1) map recreational visits to potential new NPs across Europe in order to identify best NP location; (2) map recreational visits to a proposed new NP in the west of Germany in order estimate monetary values and to show how visits are distributed across the site; and (3) predict annual visits to all NPs of 26 European countries. Total annual visits amount to more than 2 billion annually. Assuming a mean value per visit derived from 244 primary value estimates indicates that these visits result in a consumer surplus of approximately € 14.5 billion annually.