VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FORESTRY FOREST RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FACULTY STUDENT THESIS FACTORS DETERMINING TOURIST’S WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN BA VI NATIONAL PARK, HA NOI, VIET NAM Student name: Le Bach Yen Student ID: 1453091271 Class: K59 Natural Resources Management Course: 2014-2018 Major: Natural resources management Advanced Education Program Developed in Collaboration with Colorado State University, USA Supervisor: Ass.Tran Quang Bao Hanoi, September, 2018 CONTENTS ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES. Goal and objectives. General information about Ba Vi National Park.
Function of National Park .Contingent valuation method. Socio-demographic characteristics of variables. Information related to the National Park. Estimated Travel costs of Visitors.
Factors effecting to visitor‟s willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. The correlation between the surveyed factors and visitor‟s willingness to pay determination. The factors influencing to the determination of visitor‟s willingness to pay. Visitor‟s willingness to pay.
Tourist‟s perception and attitude. Factors influencing willingness to pay decision for biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity and tourism benefits. 41 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.
List of dependence variables. Socio-demographic characteristics of the visitors. 20 Table 3 Amount of people and time to stay in national park. Satisfaction level of tourists about national park's values.
Significant correlation of factors to the decision of visitor‟s willingness to pay. Classification table of predicting of determination of visitor‟s willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. Factors affect to determination of visitors willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. Income and willingness to pay Cross tabulation.
Average willingness to pay .Ranking of influential factors. 34 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Location of Ba Vi National Park. 7 Figure 2 Total tourist arrivals and revenue of Ba Vi national park.
Frequency of visit. Purpose of the trip. Visitor‟s interest in national park‟s values. Tourists assess biodiversity conservation.
Visitors assess ticket cost. Proportion of agreement to pay. Reasons for unwillingness to pay. Willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation.
Ba Vi national park. 7 Figure 2 Total tourist arrivals and revenue of Ba Vi national park. Frequency of visit. Purpose of the trip.
Visitor‟s interest in national park‟s values. Tourists assess biodiversity conservation. Visitors assess ticket cost. Proportion of agreement to pay.
Reasons for unwillingness to pay. Willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation .31 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Ass.Tran Quang Bao for his valuable guidance, suggestions and encouragement. The idea of developing this thesis is original from the reality of developing tourism rapidly in Ba Vi National Park. That is great opportunity for me to do my study “Factors determining visitor‟s willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation”.
I am thankful to Dr.Tran Minh Tuan-Head of science and international cooperation and Mrs.Chu Le Thuy-Administrative manager helped me a lot when I practiced and collected data when I was in Ba Vi National Park. Finally, I would like to offer my regard to all person and Vietnam National University of Forestry directly or indirectly support me during I do this study. 1 ABSTRACT Despite the fact that there has been a significant increase in interest in the sustainable management of protected areas, many still fail to meet conservation goals. Considering that the availability of adequate financial resources and the general public‟s interest toward environmental conservation both play such an important role in the successful performance of protected areas, it is of great importance to investigate local residents‟ and tourist‟ attitudes and perceptions regarding protected areas.
This will help gain knowledge of the level of financial and social support they would be willing to give to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation in protected areas. In recent years, Ba Vi National Park attracts thousands of visitors each year, however the finance of National Park has been lacking. To elicit attitudes and perceptions of visitors regarding protected areas, as well as their willingness to pay (WTP) for biodiversity protection, a survey was carried out inside National Park. Results indicated that tourists have higher awareness of the importance of the protected area, exhibit greater appreciation of the existence of the park and are willing ness to pay quite high was VND 22,140(US$1.08) each person beside entrance fees to support conservation.
Finding 3 factors affect to willingness to pay and total values by using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES 1. Introduction In adopting the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, by decision X/2, the Conference of the Parties recognized that bringing about meaningful changes to the status of biodiversity was a long-term endeavor. Thus, a vision for 2050 was adopted as part of the Strategic Plan.
The 2050 Vision is “Living in harmony with nature” where “by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”(CBD,2011). However, degradation of global biodiversity resources in recent times still is the greatest concern, thus increasing awareness of the significance of these resources in the stability of ecosystem functions is important task of each country. It is believed that the biodiversity resources form the basis for sustainable natural functions, and also provide potential for human use, which include the opportunity for scientific research as well as recreational benefit, such as ecotourism (Nijkamp, Vindigni, and nunes, 2008). Tourism and biodiversity are closely linked both in terms of impacts and dependency.
Many types of tourism rely directly on ecosystem services and biodiversity (ecotourism, agri- tourism, wellness tourism, adventure tourism, etc. Tourism uses recreational services and supply services provided by ecosystems. Tourists are looking for cultural and environmental authenticity, contact with local communities and learning about flora, fauna, ecosystems and their conservation (European Comission, 2010). On the other hand, too many tourists, infrastructures, and services can have a negative, degrading effect on biodiversity that mean the development of tourism requires every tourism places carefully planning and management to avoid and reduce 3 negative impacts on biodiversity.
Therefore, tourism has a strong effect to biodiversity loss as well as a role in its conservation. Vietnam is one of the world‟s most biologically diverse countries, with 10 percent of the world‟s mammal, bird and fish species in habitation. Forty percent of local plant species exist only in Vietnam. Diverse ecosystems provide critical goods and services to the Vietnamese people through the provisioning of ecosystem services, including clean water, soil stability, buffers against storms and climate shocks, and a basis for tourism (USAID, 2018).Vietnam has 33 national parks and 174 Protected Areas, however, Vietnam also is hot pot of the loss of biodiversity and population has continued to grow making Vietnam one of the most densely populated countries in Asia.
The increase in population density, along with deforestation and environmental degradation, has created a real crisis in upland agriculture areas, leading to serious degradation of ecosystems and natural resources under the pressure of free and unplanned migration, especially the Central Highlands is an example. Due to the lack of land and capital, poor people have to overexploit land and natural resources in order to support their lives, rapidly degrading these resources and leading to the decline of biodiversity. Shifting cultivation practices have caused the loss of forests, degradation of land, and creation of vast barren areas (CBD- Vietnam, 2014). Therefore, finding solutions create potential finance sources which can be efficiency for restoring biodiversity, sustainable forest protection and management as well as biodiversity conservation.
In the last few decades, many measurement methods have been proposed to assign value to ecosystem services (Christie et al. Costanza et al. estimated the value of global annual ecosystem services at about US$33 trillion (at1995 values) (1997, cited in Costanza et al. In 2011, total global ecosystem services were estimated at US$145 trillion/year (at 2007 4 values) (Costanza et al.
At the local level, the monetary value of ecosystem services is useful for decision makers evaluating policies on biodiversity conservation (Thi Ha Thu Le et al,2016). Some research in Vietnam estimated recreational value of coral reefs surrounding the Hon Mun Islands ranged from US$8.7 million to US$17. The total monetary value of improving wetlands at Vietnam‟s Tram Chim National Park was estimated in three large cities at US$5. In 2013, Thi Ha Thu Le et al estimated the total value stated by the public amounted to approximately US$1.63 million/year for biodiversity conservation (c.045 billion) and US$1 million for O.
Ba Vi National Park is one of the most National Park has rich biodiversity in Vietnam. It is the home to 1201 species of vascular plant belonging to 649 genera and 160 families, vertebrate animals in Ba Vi National Park recorded 342 species, 2 classes of reptiles and amphibians. National Park attracts tourists by famous historical places such as ancient church, orphanage, motels of senior French officials and French prison ruins ,etc. In addition, inside Ba Vi National Park has many tourism places which have leased including natural forests, plantations and bare land for tourism companies.
The development of tourism in National Parkput the pressure on biodiversity conservation cause finance from government cannot provide regularly, so this study offers important insights for policy makers interested in involving people in biodiversity conservation and raising social awareness of ecosystem services as well as create an avenue for enhancing revenue for conservation in the National Park. Goal and objectives 2. Goal - The interest of this paper is centered on examining the significant determinants of visitors‟ willingness to pay for conservation in Ba Vi National Park, so as to identify the potentially important market segment from the visitors that would contribute to higher revenue for the development of sustainable tourism in the national park. Objectives - Identify people's perceptions and attitudes towards biodiversity conservation - Study the factors influencing willingness to accept for biodiversity conservation.
- Determine whether people are willing to pay and how much they pay for biodiversity conservation. General information about Ba Vi National Park 3. Geographic location Ba Vi National Parkestablished in 1991 and located in 60 km west of center Hanoi, Ba Vi National Parkis one of nature reserve, visit and entertainment zone in Tan Linh commune, Ba Vi district, Ha Noi. Geographic coordinates: From 21 degrees 01 'to 21 degrees 07' north latitude and 105 degrees 16 'to 105 degrees 25' east longitude.
Source: VuonquocgiaBaVi cited by Vncreature Source: Google map Figure 1. Location of Ba Vi National Park 7 National Parkboundary: + To the north, it borders on Ba Trai, Ba Vi and Tan Linh communes; Ba Vi district, Hanoi. + To the south, it borders on Phuc Tien and Dan Hoa communes in Ke Son district, Lam Son commune, Luong Son district, Hoa Binh province. + To the east, it borders on Van Hoa and Yen Bai communes of Ba Vi district; Yen Binh, Yen Trung, Tien Xuan, Thach That district; Dong Xuan commune, Quoc Oai district, Hanoi; Yen Quang commune, Ky Son district, Hoa Binh province.
+ The west borders with communes of Khanh Thuong, Minh Quang, Ba Vi district, Hanoi and Phu Minh commune, Ky Son district, Hoa Binh province. - The total natural area until May 2008 is 10,782.7 ha - The total area of Ba Vi National Parknow is 11,372 ha. Topographic Ba Vi is a medium mountain, low mountains and midland adjacent to the semi- mountainous region. Mountain ranges consist of consecutive mountains, prominent as the peaks such as Mount Vua is 1.296 m high, Vien Tau peak 1,227 m, Ngoc Hoa peak 1,131 m, Vien Nam peak 1,012 m.
It is divided by streams and valleys and narrow streams. The direction of the two mountains in the direction of northwest - southeast, the height of the two mountains gradually decreasing around to create a number of terrains characteristic of the peaks, the waves rolling waves connecting two blocks together. The slopes of the mountains of Ba Vet and South Vietnam are asymmetrical, with the western slope steeply sloping.