Non-market Value of Winter Outdoor Recreation in the Swiss Alps: The Case of Val Bedretto

Abstract

A longstanding interest from environmental economists on winter outdoor recreation has overlooked activities practiced outside the boundaries of winter resorts-e.g. ski mountaineering. This paper implements the Travel Cost Method to estimate consumer surplus per season derived from ski mountaineering and snowshoeing in Val Bedretto-a valley located in the Swiss Alps. In addition, the Contingent Behavior Method is used to estimate the changes in welfare associated with the construction of an alpine center that would provide services aiming to reduce the risk of injury and death associated with winter outdoor recreation. The data is analyzed by means of latent class panel on-site count models. The latent class approach allows us to identify subpopulations that benefit from the alpine center. The results show that 33% of visitors would experience an increase in their consumer surplus per season equivalent to e31 per visitor. Keywords Winter outdoor recreationWe are indebted to Zelie Kössler for collecting and sharing the dataset analyzed in this paper.

Estimating the recreational use value of Tis-Abay Waterfall in the upstream of the Blue Nile River, North-West Ethiopia

“…Our findings are consistent with similar studies which integrate the standard and hypothetical ITCM, such as Filippini et al (2018) in Switzerland, Lankia et al (2019) in Finland, Pueyo-Ros et al (2018) in Spain, and Anciaes (2022) in Wales. However, because results from on-site data cannot give information on prospective new visitors induced by the hypothetical quality change, the estimated CS result from the contingent ITCM in this paper only reflects the lower bound of the genuine change in welfare ( Whitehead et al, 2008 ; Filippini et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The second uses the contingent TCM, which estimates the recreational value of the waterfall under four hypothetical scenarios simulating changes in the quality of different site attributes ((1) allowing the natural volume of water, (2) promoting full capacity water flow at any time, (3) investing in 50% improvement in infrastructure and services such as roads, standard hotels and lodges for accommodation services, and (4) 50% improvement in the quality of the vicinity area of the waterfall). The results of the contingent TCM are interchangeably used as hypothetical TCM and augmented TCM ( Filippini et al, 2018 ). Then, the difference in CS between “with a quality change” and “without a quality change” (equation (22) ) measures the value of the overall quality change ( Parsons, 2013 ; Champ et al, 2017 ).…”

“…While there is some prior research on the water flow of the site ( McCartney et al, 2010 ; Nurhusein, 2020 ), no study has investigated the recreational value of the waterfall based on individual visitors' behavior or sought to estimate welfare measures through a reliable methodical approach, modeling, and estimation process ( Haab and McConnell, 2002 ; Hanley et al, 2009 ; Tesfaye et al, 2016 ). Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Ethiopia to integrate standard ITCM with augmented ITCM in the valuation of a recreation site ( Alberini and Longo, 2006 ; Filippini et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Some authors have called attention to the potentially weak complementarity assumption between the recreational services of a natural site and the corresponding expenditure for its consumption ( Freeman et al, 2014 ). However, the approach remains widely used ( Torres-Ortega et al, 2018 ), and although the method is associated predominantly with the revealed behavior of visitors in terms of actual trips ( Parsons, 2013 ), there are also many empirical approaches linking TCM with responses to contingent valuation methods relating to the site's attribute quality changes ( Filippini et al, 2018 ). The contingent TCM is an augmentation of the standard TCM and aims to capture the intended trips consumers would make under hypothetical scenarios, allowing researchers to develop both hypothetical (stated) valuation estimates as well as revealed willingness-to-pay estimates based on actual travel behavior ( Englin and Cameron, 1996 ; Layman et al, 1996 ; Filippini et al, 2018 ).…”

“…However, the approach remains widely used ( Torres-Ortega et al, 2018 ), and although the method is associated predominantly with the revealed behavior of visitors in terms of actual trips ( Parsons, 2013 ), there are also many empirical approaches linking TCM with responses to contingent valuation methods relating to the site's attribute quality changes ( Filippini et al, 2018 ). The contingent TCM is an augmentation of the standard TCM and aims to capture the intended trips consumers would make under hypothetical scenarios, allowing researchers to develop both hypothetical (stated) valuation estimates as well as revealed willingness-to-pay estimates based on actual travel behavior ( Englin and Cameron, 1996 ; Layman et al, 1996 ; Filippini et al, 2018 ). In both actual and stated TCM methods, the trip frequency and the travel cost to visit the site indicate the “quantity demanded” and the “implicit price” of the site ( Champ et al, 2017 ).…”