Economic - Environmental Valuation and Estimates of Willingness to Pay in Uremia Lake National Park

Uremia Lake and its islands as one of the valuable environmental resources in West Azerbaijan province due to its many attractions, is the most important tourist regions of the country. Therefore, studying recreational value of this park could be useful in predicting needs, removing shortages and development of tourism. The aim of this research was to estimate the recreational value of Uremia Lake National Park using the contingent valuation approach. In order to analyze the factors affecting on willingness to pay by tourists, LOGIT model estimated with the use of Maximum Likelihood approach. The present study data were collected by completing questionnaires with 75 tourists who visited Uremia Lake Park. Result showed that variables of educations, gender, and revenue of households, offer price and attractive recreation of National Park have significant impacts on probability of willingness to pay by tourisms. Finally, the willingness to pay for each tourist about 7530 Rials was estimated and the annual recreational value of Uremia Lake Park and its islands were estimated about 5760 million Rials.