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Abstract |
National parks (NLP) provide several ecosystem services like biodiversity and habitat protection, but also regulating and supporting services as well as cultural services like recreation and spiritual functions. Existing research about cultural ecosystem services of German NLP often focus on economic impact studies proving their role as major tourism attractions in rural areas (Job et al. 2016, Mayer & Job 2014, Woltering 2012). However, these studies only offer an incomplete view of the willingness to pay for recreation in NLP as they rely solely on the onsite expenditures of visitors while the travel and time costs to reach the parks are not considered. This paper presents the preliminary results for the recreational value of 14 out of 16 German NLP. The recreational value is determined using travel cost models (TCM). Although well established and criticized for years (Ward & Beal 2000), theseare its first applications to German NLP. |
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