Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography
Open Access

Research Article

Economic Valuation of Recreation Use Value of Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania

Zella Adili Y^1* and Ngunyali Robert H²

¹Department of Economic Studies, The Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy (MNMA), Zanzibar, Tanzania

²Selous Game Reserve, Wildlife Division, The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

*Corresponding Author:

Zella Adili Y
Department of Economic Studies
The Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy (MNMA)
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Tel: 5242250315
E-mail: zellahadil@gmail.com

Received Date: November 08, 2016 Accepted Date: December 13, 2016 Published Date: December 23, 2016

Citation: Zella Adili Y, Ngunyali Robert H (2016) Economic Valuation of Recreation Use Value of Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania. J Ecosys Ecograph 6: 220. doi:10.4172/2157-7625.1000220

Copyright: © 2016 Zella Adili Y, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Tanzanian authorities managing environmental resources/service have made an effort to set the fees to access their resources but still there is scanty information on the pricing strategy that consider both the value of the resource and the consumer perception on quality of services which results to the management failure to predict the future impact of price/fees changes to the number of tourists visitors’ per year, visitation rate and the total recreation value of their resources. This study focused on using Travel Cost Method to value recreation in KINAPA. Data were collected using questionnaire survey, key informants interviews and secondary materials. The questionnaire used for survey was designed to capture socio - demographic variables about visitors, travel cost component variable and data on visitors perception on the quality of services provided during a visit to KINAPA. With the sample size of 384, the count data that were generated from survey was modeled with Poisson model. Based on this econometric results Consumer Surplus per day of stay in the park was 925 182 TZS (USD 571.10), the mean visitor Willingness to Pay was per one day of a visit is 837 280.80 TZS (USD 516.84), the total recreation value of the park was estimated to be 314 165 955 200 TZS (USD 193 929 602) per one calendar year and the revenue maximizing entry fee for the park was estimated to be 90 396 TZS (USD 55.8). Moreover the finding indicates that variables such as travel costs, available recreation income, age, employment status and the quality perception were significant and have an influence on the number of days a visitor stay in the park. More economic valuation research on recreation use value is recommended to other National Parks since clear understanding of the value of existing natural resource trigger the proper management and allocation of resource.

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