Demand-income elasticity of leisure boats

Abstract

Demand-income models for recreational sailing can explain the evolution of the recreational fleet using the evolution of income for a specific country, region and period. These models are useful in that their logarithmic transformations allow the value of the demand-income elasticity to be obtained for recreational crafts in the region considered. Moreover, under the hypothesis of the maintenance of the value of this elasticity, the expected variation in the fleet can be determined from the expected income data. The aim of this work is to formalise a model for the recreational fleet of a country or region which will allow the evolution of the fleet to be determined with respect to the changes in income taking place in the region, both in absolute and in relative terms. Results are obtained for the demand-income elasticity of recreational crafts for the various recreational fleets of Spain grouped into seven geographic regions.