Exploring spatial variations in the relationships between residents' recreation demand and associated factors: A case study in Texas

The study results found that the Moran's I value for national park visitation showed a positive spatial autocorrelation across the state which means that spatial distribution disparities of residents' recreation demand exist in Texas. The variable relationships differed by specific counties and spatially in predicting residents' demand. The GWR model made improvements in model performance over the OLS model. Overall, the strongest positive influence on national park visitation was found for those who spent $250 or more to purchase recreation-related equipment. In conducting future research, the GWR model is a useful statistical technique to examine and compare spatial relationships across regional study areas and can be complementary to global statistical analyses.