Author(s)

Wang Erda, Yu Yang

Corresponding Author

Yu Yang

ABSTRACT

Using individual life satisfaction data to value public goods has been burgeoned in recent years. However, no attempt has been made in valuing tourism resources based on the information of tourist satisfaction. To fill out the gap, in this paper we attempted to adopt a novel approach by using a tourist satisfaction data to value the National Forest Parks. In the process, we began by establishing functional relationship between the tourist satisfaction and the park attributes, including the rate of vegetation coverage, sanitation condition, infrastructure, as well as factors related to the recreational services, etc. in the China National Forest Parks system. The results indicate that those attributes being considered and evaluated are able to play statistically significant role in explaining the level of tourist satisfaction, thus, to generate a tremendous economic value to the park visitors. However, among the others one of the most important attributes appears to be the level of congestion in the park which can make the most significant contribution to the tourist satisfaction. Reducing the park congestion in most Chinese forest parks could be potentially to create ￥623.18 per person per trip.

KEYWORDS

Economic value, tourist satisfaction, National Forest Parks, park attributes