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Tourists’ preferences and willingness to pay for protecting a World Heritage site from coastal erosion in Vietnam

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Abstract

Literature shows that tourists can make significant financial contributions towards efforts of erosion prevention, but very few studies are done in the context of developing countries, especially to protect World Heritage sites. This paper provides the first estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) for differing coastal erosion measures by domestic and foreign tourists visiting Hoi An, an UNESCO World Heritage site located in Vietnam. Using a discrete choice experiment, our study presents several new and important findings. Tourists support visible protection structures and trees on beaches even though these hard measures can affect the natural aesthetics. There exists preference heterogeneity among tourists. Most importantly, our analysis shows that WTP of each tourist is USD $13.45, nearly seven times greater than WTP by local residents estimated in previous literature for a similar erosion protection program.

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Data availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within its supplementary information files.

Notes

  1. The official portal of Quang Nam Province, https://quangnam.gov.vn/webcenter/portal/ubnd_en/pages_list-news/detail?dDocName=PORTAL115058.

  2. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/948.

  3. We assumed that respondents simultaneously consider the visual impact of the coastal protection infrastructures. A substantial welfare loss of beach visitors due to visual impact of Coastal construction was confirmed in previous studies, i.e., Blakemore et al. (2008), Louinord and Obafèmi (2020).

  4. The “cheap talk” was read before introducing the choice set and as follows:

    “When you make your choice:

    -Carefully consider the implications of each coastal erosion management program by looking at the dimensions' values listed in the associated table.

    -Remember that each program can have both positive and negative outcomes for you.

    What is really important for me is to get your own opinion. There is no good or bad answer, what matter is what YOU prefer”.

  5. An efficient experimental design including D-efficient and S-efficient would allow a small sample size to have statistical power in model estimation (Rose and Bliemer, 2013). In our survey design, D-efficient was implemented.

  6. The official portal of Quang Nam Province, https://quangnam.gov.vn/webcenter/portal/ubnd_en/pages_list-news/detail?dDocName=PORTAL115058.

  7. The parameters of two models are statistically different according to Swait-Louviere test (Swait and Louviere, 1993). The LR statistic is 39.52, which rejects the null hypothesis that parameters of two models are equal.

  8. Other class membership variables were considered; however, they are not significant and lead to a worsen estimation result in terms of criteria statistics. The final model has thus kept the only five variables.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Lan Anh Nguyen

  2. Toulouse School of Economics, INRAE, University of Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France

    Manh-Hung Nguyen, Arnaud Reynaud & Michel Simioni

  3. INRAE, SupAgro Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Michel Simioni

  4. Queensland University of Technology, Business School, Brisbane, Australia

    Viet-Ngu Hoang & Clevo Wilson

  5. Institute of Research in Economics, Environment and Data Science, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Manh-Hung Nguyen

  6. International School, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Viet-Ngu Hoang

  7. IPAG Business School, Paris, France

    Viet-Ngu Hoang

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  1. Lan Anh Nguyen
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Nguyen, L.A., Nguyen, MH., Hoang, VN. et al. Tourists’ preferences and willingness to pay for protecting a World Heritage site from coastal erosion in Vietnam. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03773-1

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