Integrating nature-based tourism and forestry in private lands under heterogeneous visitor preferences for forest attributes

Abstract

Developing nature-based tourism in private lands calls for new mechanisms to consolidate the interests of the tourism industry, visitors, and landowners. This choice experiment study elaborates on the heterogeneity of visitors' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for enhanced forest amenities and ecosystem services. The survey, targeting domestic and foreign tourists visiting the Ruka-Kuusamo area in Finland, considered four attributes: landscape quality, outdoor routes, forest biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. For observed heterogeneity, the visitors were grouped by their attitudes towards forest management. Unobserved heterogeneity in visitors' choice behaviour and WTP was examined with the latent class model. While most visitors had environmentally friendly attitudes and were willing to pay, especially for enhanced landscape quality and biodiversity, considerable heterogeneity was revealed in terms of three segments with distinctive attitudes, choice behaviour and WTP. The variation in WTP has important implications for the design of a scheme of payments for environmental management.

Agroforestry Benefits and Challenges for Adoption in Europe and Beyond

“…Nature-based tourism is a rapidly expanding sector within tourism in Europe [95]. Thus, AFS can improve the rural economy in Europe if management through agritourism and local engagement is supported [96].…”

“…Thus, AFS can improve the rural economy in Europe if management through agritourism and local engagement is supported [96]. Since the aesthetic and recreation values are crucial to the success of ecotourism, there is a need for a market-based contractual mechanism to promote recreation and ecotourism that ensures a high aesthetic and recreational value [95]. Fortunately, some of the fundamental features of AFS have a high aesthetic value.…”

The role of state-owned commercial forests and firm features in nature-based tourism business performance

“…In the contract, specific forest management practices are defined that allow and support the user of the forest to successfully perform its business activities. By taking into account both visitors' willingness to pay and private landowners' perceived costs of provision Mäntymaa et al (2018a) assessed that the LRVT initiative could be promising in the Ruka-Kuusamo area in northeasten Finland.…”

“…Funds for compensating these measures would be collected from the visitors and/or tourism entrepreneurs using the area. The preconditions, demand and supply for launching such a new, market-based mechanism have been studied regarding privately owned forests: Tyrväinen et al (2014b) and Mäntymaa et al (2018a) examined visitors' attitudes and willingness to pay for better quality of the environment, and Mäntymaa et al (2018b) studied forest owners' attitudes to and compensation claims for the suggested payment mechanism. The attitudes of tourism entrepreneurs and their willingness to contribute to funding, however, have not been previously studied on state owned lands.…”

Size-class structure of the forests of Finland during 1921–2013: a recovery from centuries of exploitation, guided by forest policies

“…Narrowing the gap between annual growth and drain via increased industrial wood use would slow down the ongoing development of forest structure, especially the rapid increase of large-sized trees. This would be an unwelcome change from the perspective of preserving biodiversity (Hyvärinen et al 2019) and the recreational use of forests (Mäntymaa et al 2018). Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy involves additional pressure for increased use of wood fuels and, consequently, forest resources.…”