Open AccessWillingness to Pay for Taman Hutan Raya Pocut Meurah Intan: Does environmental awareness boost ecotourism?
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of advanced research in economics and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2682-812X
DOI - 10.55057/ijaref.2021.3.4.8
Subject(s) - willingness to pay , hectare , ecotourism , tourism , national park , threatened species , business , value (mathematics) , ecosystem services , biodiversity , agricultural science , geography , natural resource economics , socioeconomics , environmental protection , ecosystem , economics , environmental science , mathematics , agriculture , ecology , statistics , archaeology , habitat , microeconomics , biology
Conservation areas play a significant role in protecting biodiversity, which functions as providers of ecosystem services, protecting threatened species, and mitigating climate change. Tahura, as a national park and tourist park, is a protected area. However, Tahura can be developed into a tourist attraction on condition that it maintains environmental conditions. This study aimed to analyze the willingness to pay (WTP) for Tahura ecotourism in Saree, Aceh Besar Regency. The analytical model was used to determine the value of WTP through multiple linear regression with a sample of 398 respondents obtained based on the Slovin formula. The study results showed that income, education, employment status, and environmental knowledge significantly affect WTP for Tahura TPMI’s Ecotourism. The most significant influence on environmental knowledge helped boost the WTP by 64.77 percent. Based on the calculation of the economic evaluation, TPMI has an economic value of Rp1.023 billion rupiah per hectare. The total land area evaluation calculation shows that Tahura TPMI has a value of Rp6.4 trillion rupiah.