Estimating the recreational value of Pakistan's largest freshwater lake to support sustainable tourism management using a travel cost model

Author Affiliation

Heman Das Lohano is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Finance at Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Department

Department of Economics

Was this content written or created while at IBA?

Yes

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

ISSN

0966-9582

Disciplines

Accounting | Business | Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Geography | Hospitality Administration and Management | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Tourism and Travel

Abstract

Keenjhar Lake, Pakistan's largest freshwater lake and an important Ramsar site, provides habitat for internationally important water birds. Annually, 385,000 people visit the lake. The lake is threatened by a variety of causes, including industrial and agricultural pollution. To support its sustainable management and conservation, the lake's recreational value is estimated using an individual travel cost model. Randomly selected visitors are interviewed during peak season about their recreational travel behavior and perception of lake conditions. Key issues in travel cost modeling are addressed, including the opportunity cost of time, group travel, substitution and income effects, and endogenous stratification and truncation due to on-site sampling. Poisson and negative binomial regression models produce similar results. We find significant over-dispersion, and therefore, use the more conservative truncated negative binomial model results to estimate consumer surplus. The value of this assessment method for resource managers is illustrated by comparing the consumer surplus with existing pricing and budgeting mechanisms. The annual flow of benefits from lake recreation appears to be almost 50 times higher than the average entrance fee paid by the predominantly higher-income segments visiting the lake, suggesting scope for increasing fees and reallocating government budgets to finance the necessary lake protection measures.

Indexing Information

HJRS - W Category, Scopus, Web of Science - Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)

Journal Quality Ranking

Impact Factor: 7.968

Publication Status

Published

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