Estimate of conservation value for ecotourism resources in Taman Negara Sungai Relau, Pahang, Malaysia

The initial establishment and development of Taman Negara National Park (TNNP) was for protection and conservation of the natural forest and being a function as a sanctuary of its forest eco-systems. Currently, TNNP is well known as an important ecotourism destination in Peninsular Malaysia and one of the entrances is via Taman Negara Sungai Relau, Merapoh (TNSR). The TNSR entrance has attracted more visitors to engage with ecotourism activities offered and concurrently increasing the revenue to the park management. However, most of the charges on visitors for those who want to enjoy the TNSR resources and the entrance permit were never revised since 18 years ago as informed by management of TNSR. Due to this condition, the number of visitors to TNSR increased gradually. An enhancement of visitors will increase the revenue for the park management but at the same time will create a problem to the environment at the park. Thus, the market failure will occurs when users are not paying the full costs of using the natural resources in the national parks. The permit charges should be adequate enough to maintain the maintenance of the park and at the same time to be fair for both the local and foreign tourist. The general objective of this study is to estimate the conservation value for ecotourism resources in TNSR. The specific objectives are to determine the visitor’s perception, satisfaction towards ecotourism resource and services provided in TNSR. The willingness-to-pay estimation had obtained by using dichotomous choice Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). A total of 300 respondents were obtained using face to face interviewed among domestic and international visitors which has conducted in January to February 2012. This study analyzes the data by using descriptive analysis, factor analysis and contingent valuation method (CVM). In overall, the result shows that most of the respondents are satisfied with the ecotourism resources in TNSR. The majority of the visitors also agreed the involvement from various organizations is important to conserve and protect the ecotourism resource for future generations. The factor analysis found that five factors that probably related to visitors’ satisfaction towards the ecotourism resources and regrouped into three separate factors.The conservation value of the ecotourism resources in TNSR was estimated by using single-bounded dichotomous choice method. The logit regression model result indicates that bid, income and education variables were significance and influences the visitors’ willingness to pay for the entrance permit to TNSR. The estimated mean WTP was RM 8.76 per visit. Meanwhile, the expected benefit or the total value of ecotourism resources in TNSR is estimated at approximately RM 31,409.34 with average per year. The finding of the study recommends that the park management should engage the visitors into its conservation endeavor as well as share the benefits with them. The study also reveals that visitors were willing to pay more for entrance permit. Thus, results of this study may assist the TNSR management in establishing an efficient entrance permits to visitors in order to sustain the ecotourism resource value in future.

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