The Fall 1999 editions of both the Journal of Park And Recreation Administration and the Journal of Leisure Research appeared as companion theme issues on Fee Demo.
We offer below brief excerpts from the approximately 250 pages of academic articles in the two journals. As you will see, contrary to Forest Service propaganda, scientific research shows that Fee Demo is by no means popular with the American public. We begin with a summary of the research implications of both issues, as summarized by guest editor Alan Watson. The excerpts from the two journals, themselves, follow on their own pages with links at the bottom of this page. (The names at the beginning of each segment are those of the article's authors and the titles are abbreviated from the originals.)
WATSON & HERATH
"The most controversial issue was evident in comments by many reviewers...There has been a pervasive impulse to depend upon a strictly economic paradigm to answer public lands fee and pricing questions though there are huge social science issues of equity, public trust , government subsidies for public goods, and fair pricing that extend beyond traditional economic models."
"Public recreation agencies at all levels are responding with slogans and policies that place the recreation visitor in the light of a valued customer."
"More (JLR) insists that the dominant function of public lands is first to serve the public purpose."
"Is a business-based approach, aimed at efficiency and customer satisfaction compatible with public land stewardship? Can public agencies be in business for efficiency?"
(Schneider & Budruk)(JPRA) ... "Fees are a larger part of the decision about where to recreate than commonly believed."
"In the public sector, we have worked for decades to foster the development of a land ethic among the public. Stewardship implies personal acceptance of responsibility." ... "How does charging a fee affect that relationship? Are we willing to accept the risk of losing good stewards through achievement of good customers?"
"An evident part of stewardship is volunteerism. Who volunteers at WalMart?"
"While many recreation customer service studies have shown that clean restrooms are important to people, using fees to provide that most basic service doesn't seem to be a popular idea...The public land agency should provide clean, safe bathrooms from taxes."
"Martin (JPRA) suggests that the federal recreation agencies haven't addressed the public concern over charging fees when there are no facilities provided."
"a majority of fee evaluation efforts have tried to resolve this issue [of public opposition] by asking only those who have paid a fee."
"First of all, with a variety of communities of interest and place, Winter et al (JLR) found a vast majority to express disapproval of fees and an additional minority who expressed only conditional acceptance."
[Bowler et al (JPRA)] In "a national sample of the general public, the support for using taxes to provide the recreation service outweighed the support for using fees only, on 6 of 10 types of fees. In addition, 6 out of 10 of the items received more support for using taxes than a combination of taxes ad user fees. We think this kind of information reopens the public debate over whether the American people 'generally support' the use of fees for public recreation access."
"Only special exhibits, campgrounds and boat ramps received more support for using fees to provide that service rather than using taxes only or a combination of fees and taxes."
"Schneider and Budruk's (JPRA) targeting of non-fee paying visitors also fuels reconsideration of the assumption that people generally support fees. More than one-half of the visitors they interviewed intentionally chose free sites when options existed."
"While the very low income are currently underrepresented on public lands, a policy which further reduces their access seems irresponsible."
"The lack of systematic assessment of public, or even visitor, response to recreation fees found by Absher et al (JPRA) is cause for alarm."
"Absher et al (JPRA) report that Forest Service managers rated research as the lowest item in the list of beneficial skills they need to plan for implementation of federal fee policy. They also reported a lack of information collected to either plan for fee implementation or to evaluate public response."
"By proceeding with implementation of access fee policies without the ability to anticipate how various public segments will respond or the ability to actually monitor effects illustrates a lack of concern for the intended function of public lands in the lives of the American people."
Click here to read excerpts from the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration or from the Journal of Leisure Research.
To purchase the Journal of Leisure Research issue (vol. 31, no. 3), send a check or money order (made out to NRPA) for $10 per issue to:
NRPA
Subscription Department
22377 Belmont Ridge Road
Ashburn, VA 20148-4501
To purchase the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration issue (vol. 17, no. 3), either call 1-800-327-5557 (Sagamore Publishing), order from their website (www.sagamorepub.com), or order through books@sagamorepub.com. The price for a single issue is $15.
Please pass this information on to others you know who would be interested in research on fees.