Factors Affecting User's Willingness to Pay for Local Parks in Tabriz City Using Tobit Model

During three recent decades، because of augmentation of the damaging consequences followed by desolation of gardens، and green areas inside cities، as well as countryside، organization of urban green space activities seems to be inevitable. According to special part played by local parks in order to regulating of noise and air pollution، city managers focus on these kinds of parks. Therefore، the purpose of this study is to investigate factors effecting peoples` willingness to pay for local parks in Tabriz city، applying a Tobit model. A Contingent valuation survey of respondents was conducted between 147 visitors of «Shams»، and «Manzarie» parks that were chosen in a random method among other local parks in Tabriz City during 2008 year. According to the results، 69 percent of visitors are willing to pay for using facilities of local parks. The mean of individuals'' monthly willingness to pay is calculated about 12،520 Rials (about 1. 2 dollars). Results taken from model estimation، reveal that factors like household''s income، family dimension، visitors'' gender، and marital situation، besides their satisfaction of parks social security has positive، and significant relationship، and their range of education has got negative and significant relationship with their willingness to pay.