Assessing the economic value of a world heritage site ...

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Tourism Management 28 (2007) 317–322 www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Research note

Assessing the economic value of a world heritage site and willingness-to-pay determinants: A case of Changdeok Palace Samuel Seongseop Kima,, Kevin K.F. Wongb, Min Choa a

Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Sejong University, Gunja-dong, Gwangjin-ku, Seoul, 143-747, Republic of Korea b School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong Received 18 May 2004; accepted 8 December 2005

Abstract The main objective of this study is to estimate use value of a World Cultural Heritage in Korea using the contingent valuation method (CVM). The type of question used in this study was closed-ended (or dichotomous choice). Based on the results of the pre-test, 10 price offers were given. The logit models in both linear and logarithmic forms were employed to identify determinants from the dichotomous question. The mean WTP values were 5706 Won ($5.70) in a log-linear model and 6005 Won ($6.00) in a log-logit model. Taking into account only domestic visitors, aggregate use value from the log-linear model was estimated to be approximately 1.93 million dollars, while aggregate use value from the log-logit model was estimated as 2.01 million dollars. The results from this study revealed the economic value of the World Heritage site to users or tourists in levels exceeding its monetary benefits. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: World Heritage site; WTP; Logit model; Economic value

1. Introduction A cultural heritage is an inheritance of a nation, an ethnic group, and more broadly, of all human beings. It is, therefore, notable that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has established a ‘‘Convention concerning the protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage’’ in 1972 to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. World Heritage properties were firstly designated in 1978 and as of 2004 the number of the designated sites amounted to 788 including 611 cultural heritage properties, 154 natural heritage properties, and 23 combined heritage properties in more than 134 countries (whc.unesco.org/en/list). The World Heritage designation list includes three forms of assets: cultural assets having historically significant value, natural assets cherishing history of the earth, and a Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 3408 3716; fax: +82 2 3408 3312.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.S. Kim), [email protected] (K.K.F. Wong), [email protected] (M. Cho). 0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2005.12.024

mixture of the two assets. In particular, World Cultural Heritage designation can be further distinguished into three more specific forms, namely, archaeological monuments and works of man such as sculptures or paintings; architectural buildings; the combined works of nature and man. Seven heritage sites in South Korea have been designated as World Cultural Heritage sites since 1995. These include ‘‘Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple,’’ ‘‘Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks,’’ ‘‘Jongmyo Shrine,’’ ‘‘Changdeok Palace Complex,’’ ‘‘Hwaseong Fortress,’’ ‘‘Gyeongju Historic Areas,’’ and ‘‘Gochang, Hwasun, and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites.’’ Of the seven sites, ‘‘Jongmyo Shrine,’’ ‘‘Changdeok Palace Complex,’’ and ‘‘Hwaseong Fortress’’ are closely related to residences of kings in Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). These heritage sites have high economic value as public goods. The designation of an area, an object, an architectural artifact or monument as a World Cultural Heritage site often leads to an increase in the number of visitors, enhancement of the recognition of the site and financial support through subsidies from the government or setting

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up of user prices (Buckley, 2004). This, subsequently, gives rise to the need for increasing the budget to meet the stronger demand and expected (change in) service standards, to undertake research on how to preserve the cultural properties of the sites. Of notable significance is the Changdeok Palace site which was designated as a World Cultural Heritage site in 1997 and has since become an important representative tourism resource of Korea (World Cultural Heritage site, 1997). The site currently charges an entrance price of 2300 Won ($2.30) per adult. However, due to the lack of funding from the central government and the insufficient revenues based on userprice collection there has been a postponement of the efforts to restore the extinct buildings, a substantial deterioration of service quality including interpretation services for foreigners and concessions, maintenance of facilities and services, and insufficient publications of brochures for self-guided tours. This situation which resulted from lack of funding is likely to have an effect on satisfaction of tourists who visit this World Cultural Heritage. Given the severe limitations resulting from poor support from the public sector, numerous studies have suggested the obvious alternative is to raise current revenue, namely, to increase admission prices (Alpizar, in press; Chase, Lee, Schulze, & Anderson, 1998; Crompton & Lamb, 1986; Eagles, 2002; Eckton, 2003; Harris & Driver, 1987; Laarman & McGregersen, 1996; Lundgren, 1996) or to establish a fund for preservation or management (Beltran & Rojas, 1996; Chambers, Chambers, & Whitehead, 1998; Pollicino & Maddison, 2001; Salazar & Marques, 2005). However, it is anticipated that the simple (and obvious) option of increasing the admission price of the palace would very likely encounter immediate and strong resistance from visitors even though the current admission price is relatively low compared to user fees charged by other facilities or services in the private sector. For example, the admission prices of theme parks such as Lotte World in Seoul or Everland in the vicinity of Seoul range from US$20 to US$50. The main objective of this study is to investigate use value of the World Cultural Heritage through the contingent valuation method (CVM). More specifically, this study aims to (i) to compare the results of two valuation models to estimate the use value of the heritage site, including log-linear and log-logit models from the dichotomous choice (DC) system, and (ii) to identify and compare the willingness-to-pay (WTP) determinants from the dichotomous model. The results from this study are expected to reveal the inherent cultural and historical value of the World Heritage site to users or tourists in dimensions exceeding its monetary benefits. 2. Literature review The total economic value of cultural heritage resources is considered to integrate both its use value and non-use

value. Use value refers to the benefits from the users’ direct use of facilities or services belonging to a heritage site, whilst non-use value is derived from the intangible or abstract valuation of the resources, including option value, existence value, and bequest value. Option value indicates a future use value, while existence value relates to the fact that an individual may benefit from the resource through his/her belief in the continuity of its existence. Bequest value is related to the concept of taking responsibility of keeping the resource intact for our future descendants. The CVM provides an individual with hypothetical opportunities to purchase public goods in the absence of existing information pertaining to a real market. In fact, one of the main advantages of CVM is that the researcher can develop a hypothetical market for the participating micro-agent to make an economic decision. In addition, the method is simple because it is a direct valuation approach which aims at eliciting preferences from questionnaires and experiments. Numerous studies using the CVM as an approach have been published in a variety of fields such as wildlife or environment, water quality improvement, land conservation, human health, energy system, and forestry. In addition, many studies have widely applied this method in the research on outdoor recreation or ecotourism (Bhat, 2003; Lee, 1997; Lee, Lee & Han, 1998; Lockwood & Tracy, 1995; Solomon, Corey-Luse, & Halvorsen, 2004), and cultural heritage (Beltran & Rojas, 1996; Bille Hansen, 1997; Chambers et al., 1998; Lockwood, Tracey, & Klomp, 1996; Maddison & Mourato, 2001; Pollicino & Maddison, 2001; Salazar & Marques, 2005; Santagata & Signorello, 2000). Assessment of CVM studies which have estimated the economic value of cultural heritage goods includes a study of Lockwood et al. (1996) which attempted to identify the value of preserving grazing traditions and environmental preservation in the Austrian Alps in which grazing has been a long tradition but was sensitive to negative environmental impacts. Survey results suggested that respondents showed a mean WTP of $73 for permitting continuous grazing with reducing its environmental impacts. In Beltran and Rojas’s (1996) CVM study, two WTP values for consumption types of entrance fee and monthly preservation donation at three archaeological sites and seven cities in Mexico were estimated. A mean WTP for consuming archaeological places was obtained at N13 Mexican New pesos. Bille Hansen (1997) undertook a CVM study of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark in which mean WTP values for the cultural heritage building were estimated differently for users and nonusers. The results imply that non-users of the heritage building have a high level of willingness to pay an option value. A study of Chambers et al. (1998) estimated one-time special donation for a historic site by asking respondents to pick up one of seven payment cards. Female respondents who were the higher income earners tended to be more concerned about the historic site and were more inclined to

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show a higher level of willingness to pay. Pollicino and Maddison’s (2001) study attempted to investigate a contingent valuation of a WTP for cleaning Lincoln Cathedral in the East of England. Residents showed mean WTP amounts from 15.3 to 22.8 pounds per household. In a model to identify the role of independent variables in explaining a WTP amount, income and distance were significant at the .05 level. Salazar and Marques (2005) assessed valuation of a cultural heritage site, the Pirate’s Tower in Spain through requesting the residents to pay donations as a type of special trust fund in return for restoring the old Arab tower. Both a DC question format and open-ended question format were considered to ask the maximum WTP. In a model of investigating WTP determinants from the DC question, seven of eight variables were significant at the .05 level. For example, respondents who were older revealed a lower level of willingness to accept higher price offers. On the other hand, those who were a high level user revealed an acceptance for higher price bids. In summary, most of the past studies have attempted valuation of cultural heritage goods by asking residents their WTP for taxes or donations. However, since cultural heritage assets are a key tourism resource there is a need to identify the use value from the perspective of user-groups, that is, tourists. Questionnaires used in the past research featured open-ended questions (Beltran & Rojas, 1996; Bille Hansen, 1997), a DC question (Chambers et al., 1998; Lockwood et al., 1996; Pollicino & Maddison, 2001), and both (Salazar & Marques, 2005). 3. Methodology 3.1. Study site description Changdeok Palace which is located in the centre of Seoul, spans a total area of 580,000 m2, with the main palace grounds covering an area of more than 120,000 m2. The first construction phase of the palace was completed one year after it started in October 1404. The palace was designed and built according to Korean traditional uniqueness handed down from the previous Kingdoms in Korea. A particularly distinctive feature of Changdeok Palace is the fact that it was built with minimum damage to the natural environment and was designed to harmonize with nature as much as possible. Buildings were designed and constructed to blend nicely with the immediate surroundings and meticulous directions were given in their planning and construction. Space was utilized to provide distinctly different atmosphere throughout the grounds and careful consideration was given to ensure a continuous yet different views from each site on the grounds. The number of visitors in 2004 amounted to 685,694 and 241,922 of them were foreign tourists signifying the growing significance. This site was considered to be a tourism attraction in a Korean tour itinerary for foreign tourists.

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3.2. Measurement In applying the CVM a direct questionnaire approach is used. Respondents are asked to express a hypothetical ‘‘willing-to-pay’’ (WTP) for use-value or non-use value of a cultural heritage resource. A major issue raised in technical debates on use of this CVM has been on the choice of the question format used to describe information about the respondents’ preferences. The type of question used in this study was closed-ended (or dichotomous choice) and asked respondents whether they were willing to pay a specified bid amount after being provided with detailed information about touristic and cultural value of the Changdeok Palace site in a questionnaire. In this study, each respondent was asked the following question to estimate the monetary use value of the Changdeok Palace site. ‘‘The Changdeok Palace area was designated as a World Cultural Heritage site in Korea in 1997 because this site has been recognized as a representative heritage resource indicating excellence of Korean national tradition and culture. The palace site is an example of a good heritage and eco-friendly park to Seoul residents for walking, learning Korean history, dating, and resting in the congestion and pollution-crowded centre of Seoul. In addition, this site is a representative tourism attraction to foreign tourists’’. However, old buildings and gardens have been demolished slowly and a variety of language interpretation services to foreign tourists have been lessened. Additionally, restoration and research projects have been cancelled. These conditions result from insufficient subsidies from the central government and Seoul Metropolitan City and a lack of collection from admission prices. Current admission prices are $2.30 for 25–64 aged adults and $1.20 for 7–24 aged youth and soldiers. In return for using this traditional site would you be willing to pay—more than present admission prices (please circle one answer): (1) Yes, (2) No. Your response will not be used for imposing higher admission prices. The use value of the heritage site was estimated from visitors. To decide on price bids, a pre-test was conducted on 50 Korean adult visitors in the week of 17 September 2004 to 24 September 2004. Based on the results of the pretest, price offers were divided into 10 categories: 100 Won ($.10), 500 Won ($.50), 1000 Won ($1), 1500 Won ($1.50), 2000 Won ($2), 3000 Won ($3), 4000 Won ($4), 5000 Won ($5), 7000 Won ($7) and 10,000 Won ($10). A main survey was conducted for 2 weeks including weekdays and weekends from 17 October 2005 to 31 October 2005. All respondents were offered instant lotteries to increase a response rate and their interest in this survey. 3.3. Model specification The theoretical specification of the CV model for deriving Hicksian compensating and equivalent surplus measures is based on a utility-theoretic analysis (Hanemann, 1984). Assume that an individual’s utility is given by u ¼ uðr; y; sÞ, where r ¼ 1 if the individual is able to


participate in heritage tourism and r ¼ 0 if one is not. Income is denoted by y and other individual characteristics which may influence preferences are denoted by s. Since there are unobservable random components in an individual’s utility function, utility is treated as a random variable with a given parametric probability distribution with mean v (r, y; s) and stochastic element denoted by er . The random variable er (r ¼ 1, 0) is an i i d random variable with zero mean. An individual is assumed to answer ‘‘yes’’ to an offer price A for a policy change if vð1; y A; sÞ þ e1 þ Xvð0; y; sÞ þ e0 . In this case, the probability that the individual is willing to participate in a trip is Prob (yes) ¼ Fh (dv), where dv is the difference in indirect utility, v(1, yA; s)v(0, yA; s), and Fh (dv) is the cumulative distribution function of the individual’s true maximum WTP. As a measure of WTP for a policy change, a measure of the central tendency of the WTP distribution is generally chosen. One is the mean of the estimated WTP distribution, m+: Z Amax mþ ¼ Prob ðyesÞ dA. 0

The upper limit of integration is set at Amax, the highest offered amount in the valuation survey of respondents, rather than integrating out to infinity. The indirect utility difference model yields the logit specification when Prob (yes) is specified as the cumulative distribution function of a standard logistic variate: 1 Prob ðyesÞ ¼ 1 þ edv . In this study, two models using a dichotomous choice structure which is consistent with the indirect utility difference model, are presented: the linear-logit and loglogit specifications. The linear model includes the bid amount and other characteristics of individuals (if necessary) but does not contain the respondent’s income: dv ¼ a+b1A+b2S. In the logarithmic specification, income (Y) is included: dv ¼ a+b1 ln A+b2 ln Y+b3S. 4. Results 4.1. Estimation of use value Respondents were female (57.7%), those in their 20 s (59.2%), residents in Seoul (59.5%), and earned monthly household income of $2000–3000 (27.7%). About one third were students (32.0%), while the others were professionals (20.0%), and clerks (16.0%). In terms of educational level, slightly more than half were university graduate (52.5%). About 52% of respondents indicated that they had visited the Changdeok Palace in the last 2 years. For a question pertaining to the level of satisfaction obtained after completing a visit to this palace, the mean was 4.86. With regards to questions pertaining to beliefs about the cultural heritage resources, ‘‘support for conserving heritage assets

1

0.94

0.92

0.9

0.82

0.8 "Yes" Probability

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0.74

0.7 0.6

0.57

0.5 0.4 0.3

0.28

0.2

0.24 0.18

0.1 0 100

500

1000 2000 3000 Offer (Won)

4000 5000 10000

Fig. 1. Probability of ‘‘yes’’ answer under hypothetical scenario.

should go ahead of the concept of development or growth of a city,’’ ‘‘I have a high level of attachment on cultural heritage tourism resources,’’ and ‘‘the government should give more financial support to conserve cultural heritage sites’’, the respondents indicated a high mean scores of 6.19, 5.43, and 6.37, respectively. Fig. 1 presents the probability of ‘‘yes’’ answers on ten different price bids under hypothetical scenario to assess use value. The results are consistent with those of other studies that reported a decrease of the ‘‘yes’’ answer probability with increasing price offer. In this study the logit models in both linear and logarithmic forms were employed to identify determinants from the DC question. Table 1 presents parameter estimates of two logit models. In a linear-logit model, ‘‘price bids,’’ ‘‘income,’’ ‘‘perception on the level of current admission price,’’ ‘‘perception on visit value for the paid admission price,’’ ‘‘satisfaction with the level of current admission price at this site,’’ and ‘‘belief on a high level of attachment on cultural heritage tourism resources’’ were significant at the .01 level or the .05 level. In a log-logit model, Log (price bids), ‘‘perception on the level of current admission price,’’ ‘‘perception on visit value for the admission price’’ and ‘‘the level of attachment on cultural heritage tourism resources’’ were significant at the .01 level, whereas Log (income) and ‘‘satisfaction on the level of current admission price in this site’’ were significant at the .05 level. Percentages of right prediction were 72.7 and 74.3, respectively. A comparison of two models in terms of goodness-of-fit indices and significant independent variables suggests that the results are almost similar. Since a significant negative relationship of ‘‘price bids’’ to probability of WTP ‘‘yes’’ was found, this suggests that probabilities of acceptance of a given price offer decreases with an increase of the predetermined range of offer levels. Likewise, an association of income and ‘‘yes’’ probability of WTP was positive. It means that the richer an individual is the higher the agreement of a given price offer is. The


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Table 1 WTP determinants of models to estimate use value Variables

DC question Linear-logit model

OFFER Log (OFFER) Perception on the level of current admission price (1 ¼ agree; 0 ¼ disagree) Perception on the level of enjoyment about this visit (1 ¼ agree; 0 ¼ disagree) Perception on the level of value for paid admission price (1 ¼ agree; 0 ¼ disagree) Visit purpose of cultural heritage (1 ¼ yes; 0 ¼ no) Visit purpose of family ties (1 ¼ yes; 0 ¼ no) Visit purpose of education or study (1 ¼ yes; 0 ¼ no) Satisfaction with experiencing Korean traditional culture in this site (1 ¼ agree; 0 ¼ disagree) Satisfaction with the level of current admission price in this site (1 ¼ agree; 0 ¼ disagree) Belief in support for conserving heritage assets rather than the concept of development or growth of a city Belief in a high level of attachment on cultural heritage tourism resources Belief in the role of the government to offer more financial support to conserve cultural heritage sites Resident (1 ¼ Seoul residents; 0 ¼ non seoul residents) Sex (1 ¼ male; 0 ¼ female) Marriage (1 ¼ married; 0 ¼ others) Age Education level Job (1 ¼ company employees and professional; 0 ¼ others) Income Log (income) Constant Model X2 % of right prediction Log likelihood function Number of observations Note: *po.05,

**

.00005 — .137** .012 .224** .000 .452 .043 .014 .109* .114 .147** .084 .019 .043 .013 .002 .015 .017 .00002 — .287 173.1 72.7 228.4 442

Log-logit model — .0003** .751** .058 .146** .046 .302 .264 .031 .654* .678 .807** .406 .122 .283 .087 .233 .215 .165 — .0003* 1.546 158.3 74.3 219.0 442

**

po.01.

two results are consistent to those of most CVM studies. Respondents who were against the level of current admission price and perceived visit value for the paid admission price showed a higher level of agreement on a given price offer. In line with the results, those who showed a higher level of satisfaction on the current admission price and a higher level of attachment on a cultural heritage indicate a higher level of ‘‘yes’’ probability of WTP. 4.2. Computation of the economic value The mean WTP values have been computed from the estimated coefficients of each model through LIMDEP 8.0 program. The mean WTP values were 5706 Won ($5.70) in a log-linear model and 6005 Won ($6.00) in a log-logit model. The gap between the two mean WTP amounts was small. The computation of the user value requires an aggregation of average WTP for a specific quantity of public good by multiplying the sum of the mean WTP and current admission price, 2300 Won by the number of visitors. The number of visitors was 685,694 including foreign visitors of 443,772. As a result, aggregate use value from the log-linear model was estimated as approximately 1.93 million dollars, while aggregate use value from the loglogit model was estimated as 2.01 million dollars. In the aggregation stage, only the number of domestic visitors

was considered as this study did not include a survey of foreign visitors. 5. Conclusion and discussion As discussed above CVM has widely been applied in the cultural heritage resource field as compared to popular usage in a variety of fields such as environment, forestry, health, agriculture, water and energy system, recreation, ecotourism, and artistic goods. Furthermore, there is hardly any research which estimates use-value of a World Heritage site from the perspective of cultural heritage tourism. This study was designed to identify the economic value of Changdeok Palace area, one of the representative tourism sites in Korea designated as a World Heritage site. The mean values from two logit models were about 2.5 times higher than current admission prices. This implies that respondents are willing to pay at least twice as much as the current price to visit this heritage site. However, a cautionary note needs to be stated that the mean WTP amounts may be over-estimated because information is obtained from a hypothetical non-market situation in which information is given on an emotional basis and for a transient period during the survey time and may not justify the rationale of willingness to pay in return for visiting the site. The results are consistent with some researchers’

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comments (Bille Hansen, 1997; Bohm, 1994; Venkatachalam, 2004). Furthermore, they may avoid actual payment unlike a hypothetical situation. High level of WTP values alleviate the worry of strategic behavior on the part of users. Actual users are likely to disagree with a higher price range since payment at every visit is required. The results are supported by the notions of some CVM studies that strategic behavior do not result in strategic bias (Bille Hansen, 1997; Mitchell & Carson, 1993; Schneider & Pommerehne, 1981). Mean WTP values per household to measure nonuse value showed 5706 Won ($5.70) in a log-linear model and 6005 Won ($6.00) in a loglogit model. The gap between the mean WTP values from two different logit models was not large. Similar results obtained from a log-linear model and a log-logit model in terms of model fit indices and significance of independent variables are consistent with those of other studies (Lee, 1997). Results of this study may provide a rationale to raise admission prices at this site because the WTP values are about 2.5 times higher than the current entrance prices. The financial gain from the increased admission price can be used to restore old buildings, undertake research, renovate facilities or services, interpret visitors, and promote this site. Charging higher user prices can also reinforce current or potential users beliefs in the importance of cultural heritage assets which are so multidimensional that they cannot be easily expressed according to any quantitative or qualitative scale. Many heritage sites around the world which preserve mankind’s history have been demolished due to a variety of factors such as war, natural disaster, overuse, and weather. Thus, further studies on assessing the economic value of a cultural heritage are needed to promote nonmarket benefits such as the historic importance, symbolic meaning, and aesthetic and moral worth and conserve the public goods in a good condition. In an era of subsidy deficiency to historical and cultural resources, the introduction of private sector marketing concepts would serve as an example of successful public-private partnerships. It is society’s responsibility to save and leave behind these priceless inheritances to the next generations, beyond a territory-limited matter belonging to a nation, region, and individual. References Alpizar, F. The pricing of protected areas in nature-based tourism: A local perspective. Ecological Economics, 56(2), 294–307. Beltran, E., & Rojas, M. (1996). Diversified funding methods in Mexican archaeology. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(2), 463–478. Bhat, M. (2003). Application of nonmarket valuation to the Florida Keys marine reserve management. Journal of Environmental Management, 67, 315–325. Bille Hansen, T. (1997). The willingness-to-pay for the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen as a public good. Journal of Cultural Economics, 21, 1–28.

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