Tourist's willingness to pay for Dong Van geopark management and conservation, Viet Nam

TOURIST’S WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR DONG

VAN GEOPARK MANAGEMENT AND

CONSERVATION, VIET NAM

PHAM LE VAN

KYUSHU UNIVERSITY

2017

TOURIST‟S WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR DONG VAN

GEOPARK MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION, VIET NAM

By

PHAM LE VAN

A Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Science in Agriculture Economic

Supervisor by

Prof. Mitsuyasu YABE

Assoc. Prof. Yoshifumi TAKAHASHI

Assis. Prof. Goshi SATO

Laboratory of Environmental Economics

Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Science

Kyushu University

2017

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ACKNOWLEDEMENT

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Prof. Mitsuyasu Yabe, Assoc.Prof.

Yoshifumi Takahashi and Hisako Nomura for your dedicated instructions.

And thank my lab members so much for interesting academic discussion which

helps me to improve my thesis.

Besides, I would like to thank the management board of Dong Van geopark for

providing me secondary data, my colleagues and students of University of Economics

& Business Administration for helping me in collecting primary data.

Last but not least, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to my family and my

friends who always support and give me spirit motivation to finish my study.

Thank you very much!

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ABSTRACT

Ecotourism is nature-based, learning-oriented tourism that has the intent of being

environmentally, economically and socio-culturally sustainable. The positive impacts

of ecotourism include its incentive effect for protecting natural habitats, its provision

of funds and volunteer activity to enhance venues, and the stimulation of economic

activity in peripheral regions.

Vietnam has a great potential of ecotourism resources with a large system of

national parks and protected areas. To develop ecotourism in protected areas in

Vietnam, understanding tourist demand is essential in order to ensure supply meet

demand. Hence, this study analyzes tourists‟ preferences for ecotourism in protected

area in Vietnam (the case in Dong Van geopark) to support the decision–makers in

ecotourism development process and nature conservation in the protected area in

Vietnam.

This study focus on the analysis of tourists‟ perception and willingness-to-pay for

entrance fee in Dong Van geopark. Contingent valuation methods is used for the

demanding analysis. The double-bounded dichotomous definie significant variables

which affected the tourists‟ purchasing decision as well as in the willingness-to-pay.

This paper shows that tourists have positive perception to conserve biodiversity and

protect the environment.

The results of this study show that an entrance fee programme can be designed to

improve financial shortfall, protect environment and conserve diversity in Dongvan

geopark. The majority of the respondents in this study were willing to pay an entrance

fee which would goes towards protecting and improving Dong Van Geopark.