Comparison between tourists’ and inhabitants’ willingness to pay for nature in the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) links social and ecological outcomes from a stakeholder’s view and is an important angle in ecosystem service valuations. In considering spatial ecosystem services flows, a geographical perspective on assessments of ecosystem services is required in PES studies. This study analyzed 2445 face-to-face questionnaires for both tourists and inhabitants on the topic of willingness to pay (WTP) for nature in the Tibetan Plateau. Six ecosystem services were used to represent nature’s contributions to people, including water conservation, soil retention, carbon fixation, pollution decomposition, biodiversity conservation, and aesthetics. Then, the ecosystem management attitudes and related factors of China’s tourists were linked in 7 of China’s geographical regions. The results show that inhabitants in the Tibetan Plateau pay the most on the top limit of payment (882 CNY/year); water conservation is the service with the highest value (177–248 CNY/year), and the natural aesthetic has the lowest value (99–127 CNY/year). The subjective indicators link the payments much more closely than the objective indicators as a higher willingness and knowledge of the Tibetan Plateau locals increases their willingness to pay more. The regional potential linkages between indicators and ecosystem management attitudes are inconsistent, and the highest difference is between the opinions of inhabitants and tourists. Chinese tourists’ valuations of ecosystem services are culturally shared, since the regional differences in both the payment amounts and ecosystem management attitudes are not obvious. The findings can provide an understanding of the relational values of ecosystem services, as well as publicizing ecosystem management in the Tibetan Plateau.