EVALUATING THE LEISURE BENEFITS OF ECOTOURISM WITH DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

When people increase the leisure time, leisure and recreation become an important industry in the economic transition under the trend of rapidly growing tourist attendance and enhancing travel expenses. To cope with such a development trend and satisfy the increasing recreational demand of the public, the government and the civil sectors have invested in the development and establishment of leisure and scenic recreation spots and facilities. Participating in ecotourism and developing ecotourism activity become the fashion. In this study, DEA is applied to measure the leisure benefits of ecotourism and properly select the input and output factors to efficiently evaluate the leisure benefits of ecotourism parks. According to the efficiency acquired with DEA and the information of variables, 1 DMU, about 10% of all DMUs, presents relatively strong efficiency on the leisure benefits, with the efficiency=1, revealing the better relative efficiency; 6 DMUs, about 60% of all DMUs, show relatively marginal efficiency between 0.9 and 1, revealing that the relative efficiency of such ecotourism parks can be easily enhanced; and, 3 DMUs, about 30% of all DMUs, reveal obvious inefficiency, with the efficiency lower than 0.9. Suggestions are proposed based on the results, expecting to promote ecotourism and achieve the sustainable development.