Abstract
Recreation and tourism represent a major opportunity and nexus for managing the interaction between ecosystems and people, including particularly to urban ecosystems, where people living in an environment, that its’ contact with natural or semi natural ecosystems is often limited. The Negombo lagoon has proven to be an important recreational site in a greater urban area in the face of the growing demand for urban recreational amenities. This study evaluates the recreation demand for Negombo lagoon while Specifically, identifies the current status of recreational activities in Negombo lagoon to motivate and sustain public support for lagoon protection and conservation through monetary signals. The study employs both Individual Travel Cost Method and Zonal Travel Cost Method in order to estimate the welfare gains from recreation. The social welfare derived for both local (USD 4.7 Million) and foreign visitors (USD 911 Million) demonstrates the trade-off and synergies of sharing lagoon for recreational activities.
Highlights
Coastal ecosystems are viewed as important ecological resources to generate significant activities associated with tourism and outdoor recreation in many coastal communities that endorses protecting and managing coastal lands
Assessing the benefits generated by coastal lands against the costs associated with their protection as well as management has led to a growing literature examining the recreational value of coastal ecosystems (Ghermandi et al, 2010)
Travel cost model was used to estimate the recreational demand for Negombo lagoon through welfare that visitors derive from tourism and recreational activities in the Negombo lagoon
Summary
Coastal ecosystems are viewed as important ecological resources to generate significant activities associated with tourism and outdoor recreation in many coastal communities that endorses protecting and managing coastal lands. Recreation and tourism represent a major opportunity and nexus for managing the interaction between eco systems and people, including the development and protection of ecosystems. Recreational activities, such as walking, boating, photography, nature study and swimming, offer an opportunity for many people to experience the benefits of ES directly. This applies to urban ecosystems, where people living in an environment, that its’ contact with natural or semi natural ecosystems is often limited. Further the existing literature on coastal recreation is devoted almost exclusively to estimate the value of recreation but not to identify the trade-off among external and local visitors who have often free access to a variety of outdoor recreation activities (Everard and Kataria, 2011; Wang et al, 2010)
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