Are Potential Tourists Willing to Pay More for Improved Accessibility? Preliminary Evidence from the Gargano National Park

Edgardo Sica, Roberta Sisto and Naomi di Santo
Additional contact information
Roberta Sisto: Department of Economics, Management and Territory, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Naomi di Santo: Department of Economics, Management and Territory, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, tourist destinations have been increasingly selected on the basis of health, safety and social distancing criteria. In this framework, protected natural areas represent ideal tourist destinations due to the presence of wide and open spaces, services for tourists and attention to nature. The present paper focused on accessible tourism, a subset of sustainable tourism that is increasingly gaining greater importance within the tourism sector. By applying the Contingent Valuation Method, the study investigated whether potential tourists are effectively willing to pay extra money to be granted more accessible facilities in a natural area. To this end, a logit model was estimated to determine the probability that tourists exhibit a higher WTP for accessible tourism facilities. The analysis was carried out in the Gargano National Park, Southern Italy, an area traditionally characterised by large tourist flows that have increased further during the recent pandemic. The results showed that only a limited percentage of the respondents are willing to pay a higher amount for improved accessibility. These results represent an interesting starting point to outline an adequate strategy for the tourism valorisation of the natural area.

Keywords: contingent valuation method; willingness to pay; natural protected areas; accessible tourism; rural development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/1/75/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/1/75/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:1:p:75-:d:717353

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().