Choice Experiment –Conditional Logit: a New Approach in Estimate of Visitor’s WTP Environmental

Nowadays, environment is one of the most important economic sectors of each country and its valuation is one of the main topics of environmental economics. The purpose of this study is to determined protective - tourism value of different characteristics of zayanderoud and its monuments, with attention to the environmental and tourism’s importance of historical and entertainment areas. To realize this purpose we estimated the implicit prices, evaluate the effect of economic-social variables on these values and also evaluate welfare effects of changing hypothetical policies. In this study we used 3438 data row that came from 270 choice experiments questionnaire in 6 types, 18 choice sets, 3 choice options, 72 hypothetical policies. Hausman test shows that we can use the conditional logit model. Results of model shows that Visitors have willing to pay 6832, 6745, 4552, 9707 Rials (Dollar is 4000 Rials) for “maintaining forest diversity”, “protection of monuments”, “river hygiene” and “water flow in the river” respectively. Economic-social variables –i.e. age, sex, family size, marriage, income level, and education, being native - have positive effect on visitor’s “willing to pay”. Finally, this study offers using market mechanism and visitor’s willing to pay, to preservation of quality of environmental services in zayanderoud.