Informing management strategies for a reserve: Results from a discrete choice experiment survey

Abstract

It is well-known that operating within the boundaries of a national park provides commercial actors with the opportunity to charge a price premium, though this has to a lesser degree been demonstrated for marine protected areas. We estimate national tourists' willingness-to-pay a price premium for boat trips in the Nha Trang Bay Marine Protected Are, Vietnam, using a discrete choice experiment. Our results show that tourists are willing to pay an average price premium of 18 USD per trip for a large improvement in environmental quality, and that avoiding the loss of jobs for local fishermen is of minor importance. Furthermore, the economic benefits generated from management scenarios that combine biodiversity restoration and environmental quality improvement within the reserve sufficient to cover additional costs of such improvements.