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ABSTRACT
This paper estimates the visitor's' preferences of ecotourism facilities and services in the Redang Island Marine Park (RIMP) by using choice experiments (CE). Personal interviews were conducted with a total of 298 visitors of RIMP. The visitors were asked to select the best of ecotourism facilities and services from a given set of alternatives. Investigation on the ecotourism facilities and services attributes were done on accessibility to RIMP, provision of interpretive trail, provision of information and extra package price. The conditional logit (CL) model was used to estimate visitors' preferences. Results of the study showed that visitor's preferences of facilities and services varied according to changes in attributes levels. Results of this study are important in assisting policy makers in the management and development of ecotourism facilities and services in RIMP. This study shows that choice experiments are useful tools in the investigation of visitors' preferences for the ecotourism facilities and services in marine park.
Keywords: Choice experiment, marine ecosystem, marine park, ecotourism, conditional logit, economic valuation, and conservation.
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I. INTRODUCTION
The introduction of a marine-based ecotourism activity is meant to meet two goals, namely, marine resources conservation and economic generation. The conservation aspects refer to the protection and conservation of marine resources for future use which focus on sustainable marine biological diversity. The marine park is the foundation of an ecotourism-based economic activity on an island. Increasing emphasis on ecotourism for generating revenue leads to developments in term of hotels and island resorts, supporting infrastructure and other facilities.
At present, Malaysia has 40 islands and the surrounding marine ecosystems have been gazetted as marine parks under the Fisheries Act 1985 (Department of Fisheries, 1996). The responsibility for the marine parks which was entrusted to the Ministry of Agriculture Malaysia was carried out by the Department of Fisheries under Marine Parks Division. However, after restructuring of the Ministry in 2004, the Marine Parks division was placed under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE).
The primary goal of the establishment of marine parks is to provide an area for the protection and conservation of marine resources and habitats. Marine parks are able to contribute to these objectives through the conservation of critical habitats and biodiversity, the...