Search Results (25)

Bolivia’s national parks, with their rich biodiversity and natural landscapes, have great potential to contribute to their own financial sustainability, and tourism is one of the most promising sustainable activities that can make this possible. Entrance fees to national parks are a vital source of income for the National Service of Protected Areas, yet a significant financial gap remains. This study estimates tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for increased entrance fees in two protected areas, comparing data from 2019 and 2023 to assess the effect of COVID-19 on WTP. Using the contingent valuation approach, we found that tourists’ profiles and their WTP have shifted between 2019 and 2023. However, there was no consistent trend across the protected areas, highlighting the challenges and specific impacts of the pandemic on tourists WTP. Nevertheless, the findings can help inform pricing strategies aimed at enhancing the financial sustainability of Bolivia’s protected areas, supporting broader conservation goals both nationally and globally. Full article

Sensitive ecosystems play a major role in the future of the environment, economy, and society, as they affect and mitigate natural hazards, provide food, energy, and medicinal resources, and job opportunities, as well as cultural and recreational services. Meanwhile, the rapidly growing nature-based tourism sector is applying unsustainable pressures on such ecosystems, prioritizing the assessment of their sustainability, i.e., environmental, economic, and social functionality. To ensure long-term development and conservation, benefits from the natural capital must be valued and included in its management plan. The travel cost method (TCM), although heavily exploited in research, exhibits application challenges and methodological weaknesses. This paper seeks to comprehensively present the most recent applications of TCM, focusing on aquatic ecosystems that serve as tourist destinations, whereupon research gaps are identified, ultimately providing insights for future directions in the field. Quantifying the economic worth of sensitive ecosystems is a prerequisite to address issues, such as overexploitation, pollution, and climate change, so these problems can be alleviated in the long-run. In parallel, the critical long-term double effect of fair entrance fees is recognized, which not only motivate visitation by securing accessibility but also guarantee adequate financial resources to protect and maintain the ecosystems’ integrity. Full article

The objective of this study is to estimate the use-value of Ichan Kala, a historical city located in Khiva, Uzbekistan, that is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It also investigates the visitors’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the economic value of Ichan Kala. The survey was collected from 391 samples, and the factor analysis was done based on the results. After extracting two factors from 11 questions (variables), those factors were used as independent variables to check their impact on WTP. This study involved the contingent valuation method (CVM) to evaluate travelers’ WTP for using Ichan Kala. The outcomes of this research are in line with economic theory, which remarks that visitors’ willingness-to-pay declines as the suggested bid amount increases. In addition, the identity of cultural worldview (ICW) and tangibility of cultural worldview (TCW) showed a positive and significant effect on the WTP, while travel expenses did not remarkably affect the WTP. The results of this study provide practical implications for the government of the city or region when deciding on the entrance fee for using Ichan Kala. Moreover, this study makes an important contribution to the existent study since it is one of the few endeavors to estimate the WTP of the Central Asian inhabitants regarding the travel destination. Previous studies have estimated the use-value of destinations from Europe, the USA, and East Asia, but those studies mostly observed travelers from parallel countries. This research is therefore distinctive because both the travel site and survey sample was taken from Central Asia, specifically from Uzbekistan. This study reports the mindsets of Central Asian people towards paying the charge of using a travel destination; it may thereby function as a baseline study from which forthcoming studies may compare the behaviors of people living in this region with people living in other regions in terms of the estimation of non-market assets. Full article

Background: Social prescribing (such as green social prescribing), aims to address health disparities cross-culturally to improve well-being. However, evidence highlights racial disparities in relation to access to quality green space (including local/national parks and recreational spaces). This review aimed to identify the psycho-socioeconomic barriers to green space access for racialised individuals/families and Black Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC), to understand what cultural adaptations might be made to help support them to access green social prescribing within the UK. Method: A narrative systematic review was conducted to identify barriers to green space access for racialised individuals/families and BIPOC. Searches of publication databases (APA PsycInfo, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews [CDSR], Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials [CENTRAL], Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature [CINAHL], and SCOPUS Preview) were undertaken from January to February 2022, to identify quantitative peer reviewed studies. Of the 4493 abstracts identified, ten studies met the inclusion criteria and were included for final review. Results: The results suggest that interpersonal, practical (such as transportation costs, entrance fees and lodging costs) and environmental factors can act as barriers to green space access for racialised individuals/families. Most frequently reported barriers were perceptions of safety and costs associated with travel and accessing green spaces, particularly for families. Conclusion: Factors such as diversity-friendly schemes (e.g., multiple languages on signs and additional prayer spaces in parks), funding and strategies to improve safety should be considered in the design and commissioning of green space and green social prescribing initiatives in primary care. By mitigating these barriers green space can become more accessible and improve inclusivity for racialised individuals/families. Future research could explore the inter-racial differences between racialised populations and which mechanisms reduce barriers to access and in what contexts. Full article

The global expansion of urbanization is posing associated environmental and socioeconomic challenges. The capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, is also facing similar threats. The development of urban green infrastructures (UGIs) are the forefront mechanisms in mitigating these global challenges. Nevertheless, UGIs in Addis Ababa are degrading and inaccessible to the city residents. Hence, a 56 km long Addis River Side Green Development Project is under development with a total investment of USD 1.253 billion funded by Chinese government aid. In phase one of this grand project, Friendship Square Park (FSP), was established in 2019 with a total cost of about USD 50 million. This paper was initiated to describe the establishment process of FSP and assess its social, economic, and environmental contributions to the city. The establishment process was described in close collaboration with the FSP contractor, China Communications Construction Company, Ltd. (CCCC). The land use changes of FSP’s development were determined by satellite images, while its environmental benefits were assessed through plant selection, planting design, and seedling survival rate. Open and/or close ended questionnaires were designed to assess the socioeconomic values of the park. The green space of the area has highly changed from 2002 (8.6%) to 2019 (56.1%) when the park was completed. More than 74,288 seedlings in 133 species of seedlings were planted in the park. The average survival rate of these seedlings was 93%. On average about 500 people visit the park per day, and 400,000 USD is generated, just from the entrance fee, per annum. Overall, 100% of the visitors were strongly satisfied with the current status of the park and recommended some additional features to be included in it. In general, the park is contributing to the environmental and socioeconomic values of the city residents, and this kind of park should be developed in other sub-cities of the city as well as regional cities of Ethiopia to increase the aesthetic, environmental and socioeconomic values of the country, at large. Full article

Coastal areas around the world are under increasing environmental pressures from marine litter. In particular, tourism in coastal tourist areas suffers with waste littering on the coast, as well as in the water. Therefore, substantial costs are required for the handling of marine litter in order to achieve sustainable development in the tourism sector. The introduction of an entrance fee as an economic tool is a feasible way to provide alternative financing, in addition to limited government funding. The objective of this study was to estimate tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for visiting a marine litter-free coastal attraction, and examine the factors affecting the WTP. A questionnaire was employed using a single-bound dichotomous choice method on Libong Island, Thailand, between September and December 2020. A logistic model was used to estimate the WTP of the 1655 respondents. The mean WTP obtained is THB 92.24 per person per visit (approximately USD 3). The expected benefit of charging an entrance fee is THB 27.52 million (USD 0.88 million) for 2019. The factors influencing WTP are bid amount, age, education, monthly income, marine litter perception, and environmentally responsible behaviors. Associated initiatives were recommended to achieve coastal destination sustainability, including regular clean-up operations at beaches, seagrass beds, and surrounding waters; the placement and maintenance of litter facilities; and the promotion of marine litter awareness and environmentally responsible behaviors. Full article

China has been making efforts in nature conservation by developing a new national park system. Setting a fee-based entrance policy for the newly established national parks can be challenging without information on visitors’ willingness to pay (WTP). Thus, this study aims to evaluate visitors’ WTP entrance fees with a dataset of 1215 visitors collected in China’s planned Qinling National Park (QNP). Using the double bounded dichotomous choice format of the contingent valuation method, we obtained the mean WTP for the entrance fee of QNP of 200 yuan. Visitors’ demand becomes relatively inelastic at the recommended entrance fee of 160 yuan when the expected ticket revenue will reach its maximum of 13.8 billion yuan. Our study also indicates that visitors’ WTP is significantly influenced by their gender difference, education level, income, number of trips to natural attractions, duration of stay, the intention of a future visit, and concern about commercial exploitation. Our empirical study provides insights into developing effective pricing policies and appropriate marketing strategies for China’s new national park system. Full article

Distant observation of unique geological and geomorphological features facilitates comprehension and tourism of these important resources. Bridges offer an opportunity for such observation, and the idea of bridge-based geoheritage viewpoints is proposed. In the geologically-rich area of the Western Caucasus (southwestern Russia), eleven bridges were assessed semiquantitatively with the newly proposed approach. The results indicated their different but moderate utility as geoheritage viewpoints. The utility of two bridges is high. Bridges differ not only by the quality of the views they offer but also by their accessibility. Mandatory permissions and entrance fees reduce this property in several cases. Although the study area is somewhat specific due to the relatively large number of bridges and their utility, similar situations can be found in other geographical localities. Bridge-based geoheritage viewpoints are important to geotourism development, and, particularly, they contribute to establishing optimal and comfortable routes. Full article

The long-term sustainability of China’s national parks depends on the appropriate use and management of park resources and the provision of positive experience opportunities for tourists. While past experience, in terms of frequency of visits to the same destination and behavioral intention measured as willingness to revisit/recommend, have been extensively examined in a typical destination loyalty model using structural equation modeling (SEM), past experience with other destinations and willingness to pay (WTP), another form of behavioral intention, have received less attention from researchers. This paper, for the first time, simultaneously examined these two types of past experience and WTP using both second-order and first-order SEMs, based on data collected from two national parks in China. Results show that, while frequency of visits had no significant impacts on attribute satisfaction (AS) nor on overall satisfaction (OS), previous experience with other destinations significantly influenced AS, which, in turn, significantly predicted OS. While OS significantly and consistently predicted visitors’ intentions to revisit/recommend for both samples, its impact on WTP was significant for one sample, but not for the other. This suggests that asymmetric beliefs in destination loyalty may exist, depending on how and where behavioral intention was measured. The study endorses norm theory in studying destination satisfaction. Full article

Accessibility is an important property of geoheritage sites (geosites), which is commonly considered in their assessment. A new method, which refers partly to previous developments, is proposed to assess this property semiquantitatively. Inner (on-site) and outer accessibility are distinguished, and each is measured depending on the opportunities to reach unique geological features. Distant visibility and entrance fees/required permissions are also taken into account. On the basis of the scores, three grades of geosite accessibility (excellent, moderate, and low) are delineated. The proposed method is applied to 15 geosites of Mountainous Adygeya (southwestern Russia), and the outcomes prove its efficacy. This application also helps to establish within-site and territorial spatial heterogeneity of geosite accessibility and to propose some managerial implications. Full article

Financial viability is crucial for public nature-based attractions, especially in the context where many are seeking to transform their business model and goals in order to survive because of the heavy hit by COVID-19 and pressure from Chinese central government policies to lower entrance fees in state-owned attractions. However, there is little literature relating to the relationship between finance and transformation. To fill the gap, the framework “resource–function–transformation–cost” was proposed to explain the relationship between transformation and cost structure change by combining resource-based theory and function analysis. A case study of Shanghai Sheshan National Forest Park (SNFP) tested the framework and further revealed that (a) transformation happened because of the recombination of resources, followed by the change of functions, leading to capital expenditure being more prominent during the early stages and management costs more so in the latter stage. Further, we conclude that the elasticity of the cost structure is low; (b) the structure of functions tended to be stable over the years; and (c) the cost structure of the management, production and business, and tourism and leisure functions did not change much, while that of ecological protection functions changed significantly from capital expenditure to management costs. Full article

The reflection of ecosystem services in environmental policy has recently become a key aspect in solving environmental problems occurring as a consequence of their overburdening. However, decision makers often pay attention predominantly to results of quantitative (monetary valuation) methods. This article explores a new way of combining quantitative and qualitative methods that has proven to be a useful practice for achieving better environmental governance. We combine the (quantitative) choice experiment method and (qualitative) institutional analysis as full and equal complements. In our approach, the goal of qualitative institutional analysis is not to verify the adequacy of willingness-to-pay results but rather to better address cultural and social perspectives of society representatives. Such an approach increases the robustness of policy recommendations and their acceptance in comparison with isolated applications of both methods. To verify this general premise, both methods were applied in the territory of the Eastern Ore Mountains in the Czech Republic to capture preferences and attitudes of local stakeholders as well as tourists towards small-scale ecosystems. The results confirm that preference calculations regarding aesthetic values of ecosystems need to be complemented with facts about institutional settings and barriers in order to better address locally relevant recommendations for decision makers, such as the introduction of new economic instruments (e.g., local taxes or entrance fees). The findings of this study can also be considered for governance of larger local, common-pool resources such as (public) forests or protected areas. Full article

The culture of Jeju Haenyeo, the women free divers of Jeju Island, is inscribed on United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list; however, it is proving difficult to maintain this status because, in the absence of conservation measures, the number of Haenyeo is decreasing. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to use contingent valuation to determine the economic value of preserving Jeju Haenyeo culture, which derives from visitor entrance fees, with the aim of justifying the preservation of this and other such intangible cultural resources. Despite its methodological advantage of allowing estimation of the value of non-market goods, the contingent valuation method (CVM) has been criticized because the hypothetical nature of the conditions can cause overestimation. To overcome that limitation, the respondents in this study reported their willingness to pay (WTP), and their responses were repeatedly confirmed to ensure their sincerity. The CVM estimate of the preservation value of Jeju Haenyeo culture was 17,308 South Korean Won. The results of this study serve as referential data on the value of cultural heritages and the need to preserve and utilize these resources. Full article

This study aims to estimate the economic benefits of the Bogor Botanical Gardens (BBG) in terms of willingness to pay (WTP) and, using the estimation, to make a scenario of the entrance fee. Data were collected through a survey among 414 local visitors using the travel cost method (TCM) and choice modeling method (CM). The result from the TCM reveals that travel cost, gender, and education significantly affect the number of visits to the BBG. The value of consumer surplus amounts to IDR 582,072 (USD 40.90) and the total value of benefits obtained is IDR 728.8 billion (USD 51.21 million) per year. Meanwhile, the CM result shows that compensating surplus is estimated at IDR 19,704 (USD 1.38) and the total value of benefits is IDR 24.67 billion (USD 1.73 million) per year. The CM shows that the attributes of service cars as well as information and environmental educational tools and infrastructure have positive and significant values to the visitors. Thus, there is a potential to increase the entrance fee for tourists to become IDR 20,629 (USD 1.45) per visit. Through the increase in entrance fee, the BBG could generate a potential revenue of IDR 25.83 billion (USD 1.81 million) per year, which can improve the number of plant species, information and environmental educational tools and infrastructures, and service cars inside the BBG. Full article

The Winter World Masters Games (WWMGs) are a large sports event for 30+-year-old athletes. As there are neither competitive qualification requirements for participants, nor entrance fees for spectators, the event can be considered as a participatory sports tourism event rather than a spectator event. In 2020, the WWMGs were staged in Innsbruck, Tyrol. In this study, we estimate the payoff of the event for the regional economy by assessing the impacts generated by participant spending and organizational expenditure. Furthermore, we discuss the peculiarities of the masters sports concept. Our empirical work is based on three distinct analyses: (1) economic impact analysis of participant spending, (2) cost-benefit analysis of organizational resource flows, and (3) discussion of impacts with experts in a focus group setting. Our results support the previous findings that masters sports events attract rather affluent and consumption-oriented participants. Indeed, the WWMGs were found to have a regional economic impact of €6.18 million and an estimated yield of €4.40 for each publicly subsidized euro. For an audience interested in the economic impact of events, this paper presents a novel method for handling non-normal expenditure distributions and adds to the understanding of how visitor segmentation can be utilized in an assessment of event impacts. Full article