Evaluating Ecotourism for the Establishment of Fraser’s Hill State Park

Abstract

Fraser’s Hill is known as a tourist destination as it is situated in the Raub District of Pahang in the Titiwangsa Range region. However, the threat of commercial development activities has disrupted the ecosystem of the forests within Fraser’s Hill Forest Complex (FHFC) and has been concerning differ-ent community groups, especially the locals. Thus, the objectives of this paper are to assess the evaluation of ecotourism in FHFC by using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to identify the appropriate price level of people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for conservation fees and to find out the feasibility to continue with the suggestion for the establishment of FHFC as a State Park in Malaysia. The result shows that the public is willing to pay as much as RM3.60 per person for the conservation fee of FHFC and the local community’s willingness to pay is higher compared to the public which is RM3.90 per person. For the overall respondents, the total willingness to pay is equal to RM3.70 per person. In the survey for the establishment of Fraser’s Hill State Park, more than 70% of the respondent are agreeable and stated that as a good idea for the future development of FHFC.