The Recreational Value of Bama in China: One of the Five World’s Longevity Townships

Abstract

The recreational value of Bama Area in China is estimated to be 2.73 hundred millions dollars in 2009 via a revisionary travel cost method (TCM) in this paper. To make the estimation more applicable to the case of Bama, one of the five top longevity townships in the world, this paper adopts a new partition method and revises two calculation principles. Firstly, the conventional zonal travel cost method is amended to divide tourists by their travel cost instead of geographical or administrative zones. Secondly, the cost of tourists for different duration in Bama is calculated respectively. For short-term tourists, travel cost is estimated with the opportunity cost coefficient 1/3. The opportunity cost of the long-term tourists is replaced by their daily board and lodging cost in Bama. Thirdly, the total recreational value only covers special visits to Bama but excludes multi-destination visits. With the three modifications, it is plausible that the recreational value of Bama estimated in this paper reflects more objectively the resource characteristics and real value of the site.

Spatio-Temporal Variation of Longevity Clusters and the Influence of Social Development Level on Lifespan in a Chinese Longevous Area (1982–2010)

“…We surmise that this phenomenon may be related to the development of the tourism industry in the past decade. Large numbers of longevity-based commodity exports provide additional economic income to the people of this area, although these residents still retain the original farming economy and cultural customs, such as diet, daily routines, and optimism [ 50 , 51 ]. The influence of socio-economic development on longevity can also be observed from the above migration of the gravity center.…”

Plasma proteomic and autoantibody profiles reveal the proteomic characteristics involved in longevity families in Bama, China

“…Bama Yao Autonomous County, a remote and mountainous county located in the northwest of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Guangxi province) of China, is known for its longevity [13, 14]. The longevity township standard set by the United Nation is 7 centenarians among 100,000 people [13].…”

“…Bama Yao Autonomous County, a remote and mountainous county located in the northwest of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Guangxi province) of China, is known for its longevity [13, 14]. The longevity township standard set by the United Nation is 7 centenarians among 100,000 people [13]. The population size and centenarian rate in Bama County are around 240,000 and 30/100,000 respectively, according to the National Population Census of China in the past decades [14, 15].…”

“…The population size and centenarian rate in Bama County are around 240,000 and 30/100,000 respectively, according to the National Population Census of China in the past decades [14, 15]. In 2003, Bama was awarded the certificate of The World’s Fifth Longevity Township by the International Natural Medical Association [13]. In the past decades, the people of Bama have been utilized for aging/longevity cohort [16–19].…”