The Valuation of Natural Promenades in Rural Areas (Case Study: Chehelchay Strait)

The present study aims to estimate there creational value of the forest park named Chehelchay in Golestan province in visitor viewpoints، and investigate factors affecting willingness to pay، using conditional valuation and double-choice questionnaire. For this purpose، using 183 questionnaires completed through visitors، individual’s willingness to pay measured by the Logit model. The results suggest that the willingness to pay to use recreational value of Chehelchay strait is correlated directly to income and education variables and inversely related to price، age and gender significantly. So that one percent increase in the amount of the amount bid، the probability of accepting money in part of tourists will reduced to 40 percent. Average willingness to pay for forest park was obtained 19742 Rial at each visit. According to number annual visitors، the annual value of recreational value is estimated about 2 billion Rials. This results، denote the importance of annual investment in the region in order to increase the willingness of tourists visiting and tourism incomes of such area.