What are tourists willing to pay for securing the survival of a flagship species? The case of protection of the Ethiopian wolf

Tafesse Estifanos, Maksym Polyakov, Ram Pandit, Atakelty Hailu and Michael Burton
Additional contact information
Tafesse Estifanos: 2720University of Western Australia, Australia; Hawassa University, Ethiopia
Ram Pandit: 2720University of Western Australia, Australia; Hokkaido University, Japan
Atakelty Hailu: 2720University of Western Australia, Australia
Michael Burton: 2720University of Western Australia, Australia

Tourism Economics, 2021, vol. 27, issue 1, 45-69

Abstract: Ecotourism can be an important tool for protecting biodiversity in developing countries. Tourists have preferences for viewing charismatic species and for their conservation, but our understanding of these preferences remains limited. Using choice experiment surveys, we investigate tourists’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for the protection of the Ethiopian wolf ( Canis simensis ) in Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park. Results from a random parameter logit model show that tourists were willing to pay up to US$5.82/day/trip for increasing the wolf population from 200 to a more viable number of 250 but very little for a more substantial increase. Tourists also valued increases in the size of the protected area (PA) and access to the wolf habitat. The WTP is found to be dependent on tourists’ prior experience to Ethiopian PAs and whether they had viewed other unique species in the park. The findings suggest opportunities for ecotourism to support the Ethiopian wolf, which is in a critical state, and that the primary motivation for tourists’ support might be due to the wolf’s existence value.

Keywords: charismatic species; choice experiment; ecotourism; Ethiopian wolf; protected area; willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354816619880430 (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:sae:toueco:v:27:y:2021:i:1:p:45-69

DOI: 10.1177/1354816619880430

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Tourism Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().