The Effect of Preference for Nature-Based Recreations: Application of a Multi-Destination Travel Cost Method

Authors

  • Voravee Saengavut Khon Kaen University

Keywords:

Consumer surplus, ecosystem services, multi-destination, preferences, travel cost method

Abstract

This study examines the effect of visitors’ preference for nature in estimating the economic value of recreation services. The increasing demand for leisure travel has raised interest in promoting both tourism and nature conservation in recreation areas. This study presents the importance of various preference factors in driving travel behaviors. The inclusion of a factor capturing multi-destination trip is utilized with
a travel cost method to investigate travel behaviors and travel costs. The general model of travel costs that estimates consumer surplus supposes that costs are incurred in a single destination trip; however, this may not always hold for nature recreation trips because visitors often stop at more than one destination on a trip. This paper utilizes multi-destination trips for the travel cost method to emphasize differencing in recreation benefits. This analysis of consumer surplus uses a dataset collected in Winter 2017 from recreation areas in Northeastern Thailand. The comparison of different regressions is applied to distinguish the consumer surplus between the standard travel costs and those capturing costs for multi-destination trips, as well as the interaction of visitors’ preferences. The findings provide insight that the differences of consumer surplus varies approximately from 84 to 92 Baht per person after accounting for visitors on multiple destination trips. The results show that the visitors’ welfare has significantly increased by approximately 9.2%. The implications for precisely estimating recreation values for tourism in nature-based settings are discussed.

JEL Classification Codes: Q26, Q51, Q5

 

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Published

2018-04-30