Tourists' assessment of economic value, benefits and negative impacts of pedestrian walkways: Case-studies of the Paiva River (Arouca) and the Mondego River (Guarda) in Portugal

Abstract

This paper presents the conclusions of an exploratory study conducted by an Associated Research Laboratory which aimed to fill a gap in research by empirically assessing the quality and economic value of the recreational cultural ecosystem services generated by two walkways/boardwalks in Portugal (MRW-Mondego River and PRW-Paiva River). A questionnaire applied to visitors at the entrances/exits of those linear walkways obtained 301 (MRW) and 188 (PRW) responses. In both case-studies, visitors rated high scores for walkways’ attributes and the overall satisfaction, which is positively correlated with willing to pay for a ticket to access the walkway (MRW- 4,56 euros and PRW- 6,31 euros respectively). The willingness to give a donation for the conservation or maintenance expenses of the walkways (MRW=7,56 euros; PRW=8,22 euros). This study also conducted a K-means cluster analysis only for Mondego RW sub-sample, that identified four different clusters: Cluster 1- (N=8) Older and heavy spenders, a small segment of male visitors that spend a high amount of money during the more than two days they stay in the region; Cluster 2- (N=35) Women heavy donators, composed mainly by women with high purchase power who are willing to donate an higher amount for the conservation of the walkway; Cluster 3- (N=62)- Average visitor whose members have a profile showing characteristics similar to the mean scores of the sample; and Cluster 4- (N=189) Younger women low spenders, that plan their journey avoiding all the consumption moments and spending the lowest amount as possible (about 24 euros); Based on the proposed theoretical framework and on the claims shared by visitors on the survey, this paper provides some recommendations for public decision-makers.