Are Tourists Willing to Pay for a Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction to Achieve Tourism Sustainability? Case Study of Libong Island, Thailand
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Willingness to Pay and Determinants
3. Methodology
3.1. Study Area
3.2. Survey Design
“Local authorities require tourists to pay an entrance fee to access Libong Island. The incomes from the entrance fee will be used to zero marine litter tourism development and support the marine litter abatement campaigns and essential infrastructures to make the destination is beautiful, clean, and sustainable”.
3.3. Statistical Model
β6MLP1 + β7MLP2 + β8MLP3 + β9MLP4 + β10MLP5 + β11ERBs + ε
4. Results
4.1. Respondents’ Socioeconomic Characteristics
4.2. Respondents’ Marine Litter Perception
4.3. Respondents’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior
4.4. Respondents’ WTP for Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction
4.4.1. Reasons for Non-Payment of the Entrance Fee
4.4.2. Logit Model
4.4.3. Potential Benefits of Charging an Entrance Fee
5. Discussions
5.1. WTP and Its Determinants
5.2. Implications
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
References
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Variables | Description and Measurement |
---|---|
BID | Entrance fee amounts (THB 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100). |
GEN | Respondents’ gender (1 = male, 0 = female). |
AGE | Respondents’ age. |
EDU | Respondents’ level of education |
INC | Respondents’ average monthly income. |
MLP1 | Respondents’ opinions on “The beach is clean” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). |
MLP2 | Respondents’ opinions on “The beach is crowded” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). |
MLP3 | Respondents’ opinions on “Frequently encounter marine litter on the beach” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). |
MLP4 | Respondents’ opinions on “Marine litter causing annoyance” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). |
MLP5 | Respondents’ opinions on “The problem of beach litter affects the decision to select tourist attractions” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). |
ERBs | Respondents’ frequency of overall ERBs performance (1 = at no time to 5 = all the time). |
WTP | Binary dependent variable (1 = yes, 0 = no). |
Characteristics | Minimum | Maximum | Mean | Std. Dev |
---|---|---|---|---|
Gender | 0 (female) | 1 (male) | 0.36 | 0.48 |
Age (years) | 18 | 60 | 34 | 8.60 |
Education | 0 (below bachelor’s deg.) | 1 (bachelor’s deg. or higher) | 0.87 | 0.33 |
Income (THB) | 2500 | 23,000 | 13,300 | 2455 |
Entrance Fee (THB) | Number of Respondents | Number of WTP | Probability of WTP (%) |
---|---|---|---|
20 | 195 | 195 | 100.0 |
30 | 173 | 172 | 99.4 |
40 | 176 | 173 | 98.3 |
50 | 194 | 169 | 87.1 |
60 | 194 | 139 | 71.6 |
70 | 181 | 109 | 60.2 |
80 | 184 | 112 | 60.9 |
90 | 182 | 97 | 53.3 |
100 | 176 | 91 | 51.7 |
Total | 1655 | 1257 | 76.0 |
Reasons | n = 397 | Percentage (%) |
---|---|---|
1. I already pay enough through taxes | 260 | 65.5 |
2. Financial constraints | 136 | 34.3 |
3. Do not believe the money will be used for environmental improvement | 1 | 0.2 |
Variables | Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Coefficient | S.E. | Coefficient | S.E. | Coefficient | S.E. | |
Constant | 0.5923 | 0.4578 | −1.7335 | 0.8120 * | 2.2295 | 1.1549 |
BID | −0.0543 | 0.0034 *** | −0.0547 | 0.0034 *** | −0.0541 | 0.0033 *** |
GEN | −0.1385 | 0.1434 | −0.1544 | 0.1448 | −0.1160 | 0.1470 |
AGE | 0.0771 | 0.0098 *** | 0.0775 | 0.0198 *** | 0.0778 | 0.0099 *** |
EDU | 0.4546 | 0.2030 * | 0.4390 | 0.2057 * | 0.5074 | 0.2069 * |
INC | 10 × 10−5 | 3 × 10−5 *** | 10 × 10−5 | 3 × 10−5 *** | 9 ×10−5 | 3 × 10−5 ** |
MLP1 | 0.1719 | 0.0886 | 0.1727 | 0.0892 | ||
MLP2 | 0.1606 | 0.0892 | 0.1370 | 0.0898 | ||
MLP3 | 0.1940 | 0.0897 * | 0.1885 | 0.0902 * | ||
MLP4 | 0.1515 | 0.0908 | 0.1879 | 0.0914 * | ||
MLP5 | 0.0123 | 0.0877 | 0.0608 | 0.0889 | ||
ERBs | −1.6474 | 0.3371 *** | ||||
−2 Log likelihood | 1367.91 | 1351.92 | 1325.81 | |||
Chi-squared | 458.01 | 474.00 | 500.11 | |||
Sig. | 0.000 *** | 0.000 *** | 0.000 *** | |||
Pseudo R2 | 0.362 | 0.373 | 0.390 |
Candidate Entrance Fee (THB) | Number of Respondents | Percentage of WTP (%) | Expected Tourists | Potential Benefits (THB) |
---|---|---|---|---|
20 | 195 | 100.0 | 298,306 | 5,966,120 |
30 | 173 | 99.4 | 296,516 | 8,895,485 |
40 | 176 | 98.3 | 293,235 | 11,729,392 |
50 | 194 | 87.1 | 259,825 | 12,991,226 |
60 | 194 | 71.6 | 213,587 | 12,815,226 |
70 | 181 | 60.2 | 179,580 | 12,570,615 |
80 | 184 | 60.9 | 181,668 | 14,533,468 |
90 | 182 | 53.3 | 158,997 | 14,309,739 |
100 | 176 | 51.7 | 154,224 | 15,422,420 |
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Panwanitdumrong, K.; Chen, C.-L. Are Tourists Willing to Pay for a Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction to Achieve Tourism Sustainability? Case Study of Libong Island, Thailand. Sustainability 2022, 14, 4808. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084808
Panwanitdumrong K, Chen C-L. Are Tourists Willing to Pay for a Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction to Achieve Tourism Sustainability? Case Study of Libong Island, Thailand. Sustainability. 2022; 14(8):4808. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084808
Chicago/Turabian StylePanwanitdumrong, Kansinee, and Chung-Ling Chen. 2022. "Are Tourists Willing to Pay for a Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction to Achieve Tourism Sustainability? Case Study of Libong Island, Thailand" Sustainability 14, no. 8: 4808. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084808
APA StylePanwanitdumrong, K., & Chen, C. -L. (2022). Are Tourists Willing to Pay for a Marine Litter-Free Coastal Attraction to Achieve Tourism Sustainability? Case Study of Libong Island, Thailand. Sustainability, 14(8), 4808. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084808