Visitor’s Willingness to Pay for National Park Entrance Fees in China: Evidence from a Contingent Valuation Method

Abstract

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.

Assessing Household Willingness to Pay for the Conservation of the Phou Chom Voy Protected Area in Lao PDR

“…This may be because educated respondents were concerned about the natural environment; education raises environmental awareness and values natural resources. The positive correlation between education level and a household's WTP for conservation in this study is consistent with many previous studies [46,48,58,59].…”

“…NoVP is a continuous variable that refers to the respondents' number of visits or the use of ecosystem services in the PA. It is also a significant factor affecting respondent WTP; people who visit the protected site more frequently may be more willing to support it because it will obviously benefit them [48,52,[58][59][60].…”

Valor económico de áreas naturales protegidas en climas semiáridos: el caso del Bosque de Cobos, Aguascalientes, México

“…En esa misma línea (Liu et al, 2019) obtuvieron la dap anual de los turistas para mantener la calidad y los servicios del Parque Nacional Huisun en Taiwan, la cual fue de 99.11 dólares por persona en invierno y de 96.93 dólares por persona en verano. Finalmente, Song et al (2021) preguntaron a 1215 personas su dap un precio de entrada para acceder al Parque Nacional Qinling en China para contribuir a un fondo de conservación.…”

From bribes to bequests and gifts to gratuities: The black, white, and shades of gray of how and why consumers pay what they want

“…While at first blush it may seem odd to include a "fixed" payment as a "voluntary" payment, there are two domains in which the payment is at the same time voluntary and fixed. The first example is that of a fixed "suggested fee" to enter a cultural institute (e.g., museum) or a public recreation service (e.g., park), where consumers' willingness to pay varies as a function of their demographics as well as their actual or intended usage (Song et al, 2021). The second is service establishments (e.g., restaurant) that levies a fixed service charge (e.g., 10% in HK, Dewald, 2003) and then leaves the decision of whether to leave a tip to the customer.…”