an estimation of the recreational value and determination of effective factors on visitors willingness to pay for ghourigol wetland

ghourighol international wetland which is located at bostan-abad conuty in east azerbaijan province is known as one of the important tourism and promenade zone of iran due to its special natural gravities. therefore, studying tourism value of this place could express the importance of its protection, predicting needs, removing scarcities and the development of tourism. the aim of this research is to estimate recreational value of goorigoal wetland using contingent valuation method. to determine affecting factors on visitors’ willingness to pay, a logit model was estimated using maximum likelihood approach. required data was obtained through questionnaires and interviewing with 390 individuals who had visited the wetland in 2008 year. results indicated that 81 percents of visitors were ready to pay to visit the wetland. also, visitors’ information about ghourighol wetland was in a low level and they mostly were dissatisfied from bad condition of bathrooms, lounge, stores, restaurant, parking lot, transportation service and environmental pollution in the area. furthermore, results revealed that factors such as education, family’s revenue, information level about this wetland and the time spent in the area had positive and significant effect on the probability of willingness to pay of the visitors, while variables include individual’s age, bid and distance to this wetland had negative and significant effect. the mean value of wtp for the recreational annual value of the ghourighol wetland is 7430 rls and the estimated total recreational annual value of the wetland was 743millon rls. to increase the number of tourists and consequently increase the revenue of tourism in this region, solving the place’s problems, extending people’s information and awareness about such recreational and environmental potentials are offered.