Modelling Potential Repetition of a Visit to Value Environmental Quality Change of a Single Site

Abstract

"The purpose of this paper is to find out how much visitors in Ventanilla, Oaxaca, Mexico value an environmental quality change. Ventanilla is a rural community using a coastal lagoon ecosystem service for ecotourism. In the region, land regime is communal and the main sources of income are agriculture and fishery. Direct or indirect effects are generated between activities during the production of goods. For instance, the effects on the incoming of tourists and visitors to the region given by an environmental quality change is motivated by an increase or decrease in the intensity of the production in other sectors, such as agriculture. The interest of this paper is to know the willingness to accept an environmental change in order to repeat a visit to Ventanilla.

"Most common environmental valuation techniques employ contingent valuation or travel cost method. A drawback of these techniques is due to the lack of information that interviewees usually have about the site concerned in the study. This lack of knowledge becomes even more relevant when assessing changes in the current environmental quality of the site. Our paper proposes the use of an alternative contingent behavior model combined with experimental techniques. The methodology is focused on the potentiality that current visitors may repeat or not their visit in the future.

"Within a microeconomic framework we show how willingness to pay or willingness to accept will be obtained with respect to environmental quality changes under our contingent behavior model. Furthermore we model the repetition of visits employing the well-known probit model. The three main attributes assessed in this model are the number of crocodiles, birds and the mangrove area. We conduct a survey on the site during Easter and Summer of 2003. Information concerning if visitors are willing to repeat the visit or not and acceptable or desirable changes in environmental quality to guarantee a repetition of the visit were collected.

"From our model we obtain willingness to pay or accept for environmental quality changes, variations in probabilities of visiting the site after such changes and shift in total demand. The case study presents the results from the survey and the probit model. Changes on willingness to accept and total demand estimations are in process. Demand is divided into three components: a random component, conscious visitors (those who have previous information about the site, either via some research or via friends) and repeat visitors (those who have already experienced the site). Once we obtain the shift in demand we can associate the effect originated by the environmental quality change and the consequent effect on the incoming of tourists. This link is useful as a tool to assess land use alternative policies in common resources."