Estimation of Recreational Value of Udawalawa National Park A Revisit

Abstract

Estimating the value of a National Park is a challenging task as the services provided by theNational Park does not capture effectively in the markets. However the resource allocatorsand managers need to be aware of the values of those assets for efficient and fair allocation ofresources and better management of such resources.Popularization of nonmarket valuation techniques during late 90s motivated many researchersin estimating recreational values of Sri Lankan National Parks. The travel cost methodology,was widely used technique to derive such values. It depends on current market prices andestimated values were nominal values. Hence such values change with the changing pricelevels. The estimation of recreational value of Udawalawa National park has already beencarried out in 1996 and the estimated value was 2.18 million Rupees (1USD = 55.27 LKR)per annum. Therefore, the aim of this study was to re-estimate the recreational value of thePark to update the knowledge base for the decision makers.In the study, 272 visitors were interviewed during a period of one month. Data was collectedon information on area of residence, socio economic status, their visitation rates toUdawalawa National Park, willingness to see wildlife, information on round trip mileage,travel costs, opportunity cost of travel time, length of the trip, time spent at the site etc.Foreigners were excluded in the survey. Respondents were selected covering all seven daysto capture the daily variations. Average zonal travel costs were estimated for different visitorzones and regressed against respective zonal visitation rates to derive the demand function.Consumer surplus was calculated by using the derived demand function.It was revealed that the consumer surplus of Udawalawa National Park in 2013 was 30.05million Rupees (1USD =127.36 LKR) per year which is 14 times the value of 1996 estimates.Estimated consumer surplus per visit at the revenue maximizing level was 729.49 Rupeeswhich is 10.5 times the estimate of 1996. It is also evident that the legally prescribed feestructure is far below the recreational benefits of the site and promotes over visitation.Findings of the study emphasize the need of periodical re-estimation of values in order tofacilitate effective decision making.The change may be partly due to the price level changes and the effect of other demandshifters such as customer taste, changes in perceived value of natural resources, increasedpotential consumers etc. Such factors contributing to the change of the recreational valuewere not examined in this study. Further studies on eliciting such contributors, their relativeimpacts and the dynamics could be suggested for better policy decisions on natural resourcemanagement.