Hosein Raheli; Rahim Heidari; Mohammad Khodaverdizadeh
Volume 17, Issue 44 , September 2013, , Pages 95-117
Abstract
After oil industry, tourism makes revenues as the second world’s economy for many countries. Tourism today not only has become the world's largest and most widespread industry, but one inseparable from the needs of mankind contemporary life. Protection of natural resources as a major ecotourism ...
Read More
After oil industry, tourism makes revenues as the second world’s economy for many countries. Tourism today not only has become the world's largest and most widespread industry, but one inseparable from the needs of mankind contemporary life. Protection of natural resources as a major ecotourism capital faced challenges because most people think of the natural resources has free. Therefore, assessment of environmental resources and ecotourism areas for economic policy and strategic decisions should be considered important as the principles of tourism development. Asiabkharbe waterfall in Jolfa city being located in East Azerbaijan province is considered as one of the most attractive tourism destinations in regional level. Present paper attempts to determine and estimate the recreational value of this ecotourism attraction by using contingent valuation method (CVM) and reviews the factors affecting willingness to pay (WTP) by logit model. The results show that 68 percent of visitors are willing to paying for visiting this ecotourism destination and the amount proposed, education, income, satisfaction, family size, age and gender are the most important factors in WTP, and on the other hand, average willingness to pay per visitor is 4000 Rials and annual recreational value of this ecotourism attraction is 380,000,000 Rials. Planners should give more attention to develop tourism and enhance the welfare of visitors to the Asiyabkharabe waterfall, according to high value and importance of this waterfall.
