Tourist preferences for ecotourism in Phu My nature reserve, Vietnam

 Tourist preferences for ecotourism 
 in Phu My nature reserve, Vietnam 
 A Thesis 
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of 
 Master of Science 
 (Agricultural and Resource Economics) 
 by 
 TRAN THI THU DUYEN 
 Supervised by 
 Professor Dr. Mitsuyasu YABE 
 Assistant Professor Dr. Goshi SATO 
 Laboratory of Environmental Economics 
 Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics 
 Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Science 
 Kyushu University 
 Japan, 2014 
 ACKNOWLEDEMENT 
I would like to thank Japanese government, JICA and JICE very much for giving me 
good chance to study in Japan and implement my thesis. 
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor, Dr. Mitsuyasu YABE, my 
supervisor, and Lecture, Dr. Hisako NOMURA for your dedicated instructions. 
And thank my lab members so much for interesting academic discussion which helps 
me to improve my thesis. 
Besides, I would like to thank the manager of Phu My protected area for providing me 
secondary data and students of Can Tho University for helping me in collecting 
primary data. 
Last but not least, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to my parents and my 
sister who always support and give me spirit motivation to finish my study. 
Thank you very much! 
 i 
 ABSTRACT 
Ecotourism has been more and more promoted in many countries because it 
contributes to nature conservation, eco-education and income generation for local 
community. Vietnam has a great potential of ecotourism resources with a large system 
of national parks and protected areas, however the development of ecotourism in 
protected areas in Vietnam is not corrective to its potential. To develop ecotourism in 
protected areas in Vietnam, understanding tourist demand is essential in order to 
ensure supply meet demand. Hence, this study analyzes tourists’ preferences for 
ecotourism in protected area in Vietnam (the case in Phu My nature reserve) to 
support the decision–makers in ecotourism development process and nature 
conservation in the protected area in Vietnam. 
Choice experiment approach is employed to examine tourists’ interests in ecotourism 
services and estimate their willingness to pay for these ecotourism services as well as 
preferences for biodiversity conservation. The hypothetical ecotourism tours in the 
protected area were introduced to tourists with 5 attributes, including Crane-watching, 
craft-market visiting, fishing service, donation for biodiversity conservation and price 
of ecotourism tour. Data were collected by interviewing 199 tourists directly from 
August to September 2013. 
Surveyed data are analyzed using Conditional Logit Model. Research results present 
that tourists prefer to enjoy in this hypothetical ecotourism with all ecotourism 
services offered: the crane-watching, craft market visiting, especially fishing service 
giving the highest marginal utility. The study also reveals that tourists prefer a lower 
price for ecotourism tour. Then tourist’s marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for 
 ii 
 each attribute is calculated. Tourists are willing to pay 155 thousand VND for Crane-
watching, and 111 thousand VND for craft-market visiting. Fishing services are 
higher valued with the marginal willingness to pay at 222 thousand VND and 307 
thousand VND for fishing service only and fishing service including enjoying special 
food from the caught fishes respectively. 
The study also discovers that tourists are willing to donate to protect the natural 
environment and biodiversity conservation. The donation has positive effect on 
tourist’s utility or tourists prefer higher donation level within the levels of donation 
suggested in the questionnaire. Then tourist’s marginal willingness to pay for donation 
is calculated. Tourists are willing to pay 2.93 thousand VND as tour cost to get 1 
thousand VND donation for biodiversity conservation. This is optimistic information 
for the manager to have strategy for raising conservation fund. 
The findings of this study are very useful for the managers and especially locals to 
plan for supplying ecotourism services as well as consider the prices of these services 
based on MWTP results. On the other hand, eco-education should be included in 
ecotourism. Information on importance of natural and biodiversity conservation can 
be provided through ecotourism service. Then, the managers can encourage tourists 
contribute to the conservation of nature and biodiversity in this area. 
 iii 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Acknowledgement .............................................................................................................. i 
Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii 
Table of contents ............................................................................................................... iii 
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi 
List of Figures .................................................................................................................. vii 
List of Photos .................................................................................................................. viii 
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... ix 
Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................1 
 1.1 Background and problem statement .....................................................................1 
 1.2 Objective ..............................................................................................................2 
 1.3 Literature review: Choice experiment approach for analysis of tourist 
 preferences for ecotourism ...................................................................................2 
 1.4 Literature review: Choice experiment approach for analysis of donation for 
 public goods .........................................................................................................6 
 1.5 Organization of the study .....................................................................................7 
Chapter 2: Methodology ...................................................................................................9 
 2.1 Biodiversity and tourism ......................................................................................9 
 2.2 Theory of motivation for individual charitable giving ......................................10 
 2.3 Contingent Valuation Method ............................................................................17 
 2.4 Choice modeling and choice experiments .........................................................18 
 2.4.1 Choice modeling .............................................................................................18 
 iv 
 2.4.2 Choice experiments .........................................................................................20 
Chapter 3: Study area, questionnaire and survey ........................................................23 
 3.1 Study area ...........................................................................................................23 
 3.2 Questionnaire .....................................................................................................25 
 3.3 Survey site and data collection ..........................................................................29 
Chapter 4: Tourist preferences for ecotourism and biodiversity conservation in 
Phu My nature reserve, Vietnam ..................................................................................31 
 4.1 Respondent’s profile ..........................................................................................31 
 4.2. Tourist preference for ecotourism .....................................................................34 
 4.3. Tourist’s preferences for biodiversity conservation .........................................38 
Chapter 5: Conclusion and implication ........................................................................44 
References ........................................................................................................................46 
Appendix ..........................................................................................................................52 
 LIST OF TABLES 
Table 1. Ecotourism attribute and attribute levels ............................................................27 
Table 2. Example of a choice set ......................................................................................28 
Table 3. Visitation and revenue from tourist in Ha Tien ...................................................29 
 v 
 Table 4. Visitation and revenue from tourist in Kien Giang .............................................30 
Table 5. Socio-economic characteristics of respondents ..................................................31 
Table 6. Tourists’ knowledge on study area .....................................................................33 
Table 7. Descriptive statistic of variables in MLM ...........................................................36 
Table 8. Estimation Results of MLM ................................................................................37 
Table 9. Estimation of Marginal Willingness to Pay ........................................................38 
Table 10. Tourist’ attitude for nature conservation ..........................................................39 
 vi 
 LIST OF FIGURES 
Figure 1. Biodiversity loss and ecotourism .......................................................................10 
Figure 2. Process model of norm-activation in the context of CVM ................................16 
Figure 3. Location of study area and survey site ..............................................................23 
Figure 4. Structure of tourist’s age ....................................................................................32 
Figure 5. Structure of tourist’s income .............................................................................32 
Figure 6. Structure of tourist’s education ..........................................................................33 
Figure 7. Tourist preference for tourism ...........................................................................34 
Figure 8. Tourist’s willingness to pay for entrance fee ....................................................40 
Figure 9. Kaplan-Meier survivor function for WTP .........................................................41 
Figure 10. Tourist preference for entrance ( to compare with CE results) .......................42 
 vii 
 LIST OF PHOTOS 
Photo 1. Sarus Crane in Phu My .......................................................................................24 
Photo 2. Handicraft products in Phu My ..........................................................................24 
 viii 
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 
CE: Choice experiment 
CM: choice modeling 
CVM: Contingent valuation method 
CV: Contingent valuation 
 ix