Abstract
- This paper seeks to determine if tourists visiting the Riviera Maya, Mexico, are willing to pay an entrance fee to enhance coral reef protection; and if so, how much would they pay? A discrete choice contingent valuation experiment with almost 400 visitors was used to determine a measure of compensating variation for contributing to a public trust to protect corals. Results suggest that there are significant possibilities for implementing a “coral fund” to raise revenues for coral protection programs in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. We estimate a mean willingness to pay (WTP) of over $55.00. Additionally, all three estimation methods used produced relatively similar values for mean WTP, ranging from $42 to $58. With approximately five million visitors passing through the Cancun International Airport each year, this suggests that it may be possible to collect between $100 and $400 million annually for coral reef management programs. Thinking very conservatively, if we take a $20 fee and assume that only 50% of tourists would actually be willing to pay, that is still $50 million left on the table annually.