Monitoring visitor use density and degradation of wilderness for sustainable mountain tourism
2005
Yoshimura, T. | Hasegawa, N. | Nakashima, T.
In Japan, more and more people are getting interested and tourism in mountain areas. Thus, many mountain areas are threatened by numerous visitor-caused impacts, which are sometimes beyond unacceptable limits. The objectives of this study were to suggest appropriate measures to control the number of visitors under the acceptable level of visitor-caused impacts. In this study, we used a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to monitor visitor use density of the Kyoto University Forest in Ashiu, where degradation of wilderness is becoming a serious problem. In addition, questionnaire survey to investigate visitors` awareness of and willingness to pay (WTP) for nature conservation was conducted. As a result, we collected GPS tracking data for 223 groups (815 visitors), and 361 responses to the questionnaire. A map of visitor use density was made based on the GPS tracking data, and it successfully showed that the Kamitani and Makuradani valleys were visited by a lot of people, and the visitor number to these valleys should be controlled under the acceptable level. In the questionnaire, we asked the respondents if they had willingness to pay (WTP) for nature conservation of the forest in Ashiu. As a result, 79% of them were WTP, and the average amount they were WTP was 415 yen/visit/person.
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