ANALYSIS OF VISITORS' WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR THE KERANDANGAN NATURE TOURISM PARK ECOUTOURISM, LOMBOK, WEST NUSA TENGGARA PROVINCE, INDONESIA

Abstract

The Kerandangan Nature Tourism Park (KNTP), as a conservation area, provides various ecosystem services that do not have direct market value or are intangible. These ecosystem services include benefits in climate regulation, soil protection, water purification, and habitat for biodiversity. Besides that, the KNTP has many tourist attractions, such as the biophysical potential presented in the form of waterfalls, rivers, camping ground and various flora and fauna. KNTP management has planned the development of sustainable natural tourism. The development of natural tourism that ignores the area's function as a conservation area has the potential to cause environmental degradation. Therefore, it is necessary to assess natural resources and intangible environmental services using the Willingness to Pay (WTP) and consumer surplus. The aim of this research is to measure the economic value of natural tourism environmental services in KNTP based on visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) and consumer surplus value. The approach used in this research is the travel cost approach. This approach uses travel costs to estimate the value of WTP and consumer surplus. The research results show that the average WTP value is IDR 13,300 and the consumer surplus value is IDR 171,232 per visit. The WTP value obtained is much smaller than the consumer surplus value. This shows that ticket prices for natural tourism at TWA Kerandangan can still be increased. Willingness of visitors to pay compensation costs, prevent damage to the tourist environment, support conservation and the quality of ecosystem environmental services.

Keywords

• consumer surplus
• ecosystem services
• economic value
• nature tourism park