Estimating the Tourist's Willingness to Pay for Agroturism Services in Coastal Provinces of Caspian Sea

The main purpose of this study is to estimate the tourists` willingness to pay for agro-tourism services in the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). A Logit Model was estimated using Maximum Likelihood Approach in order to investigate the effective factors on individual willingness to pay. The required data were collected through completing questionnaires and interviews with 504 visitors of the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea in summer 2012. The results of this study showed that about 70 percent of visitors are willing to pay some money to use agro-tourism services in tourist farms. Also، variables including level of education، agro-tourism attraction، income and prices offered (bid) had a statistically significant effect on the probability of anticipated willingness to pay. Tourists'' expected willingness to pay was set at 12920 RLs and the recreational annual value of the tourist farms was estimated to be 116 billion RLs. According to findings، there is the possibility to increase tourism revenue of agricultural activity by considering the visitors'' point of view. In today''s world، countries are faced with challenges such as rural migration، increasing productivity of resources، human resource efficiency، employment creation، and environmental protection، and these challenges emphasize the necessity of multidimensional planning in the sustainable rural development process. To this end، many countries are paying attention to diversify their economy and seeking recognition or creation the new approaches. One of these methods is development of rural tourism industry and one of the new areas of this kind of tourism is agro-tourism or farm tourism. This kind of tourism can provide opportunities and possibilities especially employment and income generating for farmers and could be effective in rehabilitation and renovation of rural areas. Agro-tourism refers to agriculture-related activities organizing mainly by farmers with the aim of attracting tourists to the village and the farms. Considering the diversity of climate، the nature of the four seasons، natural attractions، monuments، architecture، and cultural and geographical crafts، Iran has capability for development of agro-tourism industry; however، the income generated by agro-tourism development in Iran is negligible. So، the main purpose of this study is to estimate the tourists` willingness to pay for agro-tourism services in the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea. Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used to estimate the tourists` willingness to pay for agro-tourism services in the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea. The data required for this research was collected through interviews and completing questionnaires with tourists of the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea in summer 2012. The questionnaire was developed in two sections. The first part included the information related to personal، social and economic characteristics of respondents and the second section consisted of questions related to tourists` willingness to pay. In order to determine the sample size، the number of tourists visiting the intended areas was obtained from Cultural Heritage، Craft، and Tourism Organization. After performing a pilot test and completing 30 questionnaires in Farah-Abad، Sari، the sample size calculated (n=504) and 415 questionnaires ware analyzable. Discussion and A Logit Model was estimated using Maximum Likelihood approach in order to investigate the effective factors on tourists` willingness to pay. The results of the investigation of tourists` willingness to pay for using farm-tourism accommodation showed that about 70 percent of respondents were willing to pay some money to use agro-tourism services and accommodation providing at tourist farms. The average of tourists'' expected willingness to pay was set at 12920 RLs. The Likelihood Ratio (LR) was used to investigate the overall significance of the regression. The value of this indicator with the degrees of freedom of 6 was 88. 63 and the overall estimated model is statistically significant at the 1 % level of significance، because the estimated value of LR is higher than the calculated probability value (P-value) for this test. The value of the McFadden determination coefficient for the estimating logit model is equal to 0. 21. Given the number of observations of the dependent variable، these digits are desirable values. Percent of right prediction is also over 65%، and this value shows desirable digit because the acceptable percent of right prediction for logit and probit models is equal to 60%. So the model is reliable for subsequent analyzes. The findings also showed that variables including marital status، level of education، agro-tourism attraction، income، and prices offered (bid) had a statistically significant effect on the probability of anticipated willingness to pay. Estimated coefficients for the explanatory variables including marital status، level of education، virtual variable- attractiveness of farm tourism services، tourists` income، and prices offered (bid) are statistically significant at 0. 05 and 0. 01 percent. Variables including marital status، level of education، attractiveness of farm tourism services، and tourists` income had a positive effect and prices offered (bid) had a negative effect on the willingness to pay of the coastal provinces tourists. The results of this study indicate that the willingness to pay for development of agro-tourism services exist among the tourists of the coastal provinces of the Caspian Sea in Iran. According to findings، there is the possibility to increase tourism revenue of agricultural activity by considering the visitors'' point of view. Given the average value of tourists` willingness to pay، the recreational annual value of the tourist farms was estimated to be 116 billion RLs. This provides justification to the attention of all actors influencing the sustainable development of agro-tourism to provide the required context for sustainable tourism development by providing facilities and possibilities in rural areas of coastal province of the Caspian Sea. Considering the lack of sufficient knowledge regarding the concepts and functions of agro-tourism، the first and most important step in this direction could be to create awareness amongst both the consumer society and rural community and also encourage them to apply in a sustainable agro- tourism practices، with an emphasis on the agro- tourism industry to become a complementary income source.