Estimation of conservation value of Khoor-o-Biabank area with conditional valuation approach

Desert ecosystems have a considerable potential to attract domestic and foreign tourists, and it is essential to pay attention to their market and non-market values in sustainable economic development. The purpose of this study is to estimate the conservation value of Khoor-o-biabank city and investigate the factors affecting people's willingness of people to pay for the protection of this area using the logit model and the maximum likelihood estimation method. For this purpose, 388 questionnaires from the visitors of the studied area were collected and analyzed using the conditional valuation method using the two-dimensional double choice extraction method. The analysis of the collected data showed that 71.8 percent of people are willing to pay for the protection of the area, which indicates its high importance from the point of view of visitors. Also, the results show that the maximum willingness to pay each person for the protection value of the area is 108,540 Rials. Based on this, the annual protection value was determined as 4,228 million Rials. Gender, occupation, frequency of visits to the region, importance to the environment, income and membership in environmental protection organizations have had a positive and significant effect on the willingness to accept the proposed amounts. The results of the present research can help the managers of the tourism field in the planning of the province in improving the tourism conditions and also prioritizing these points.