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ABSTRACT
The village of Masouleh is located at Fouman region in Guilan province, northern part of Iran. It is famous as an important tourism destination and recreational zone in Iran because of its numerous natural tourism attractions. Accordingly, the outdoor recreational value of Masouleh was estimated by the contingent valuation method (CVM). The logit model was estimated by the maximum likelihood approach to identify the effective variables on individuals' willingness to spend money for recreational programs. Questionnaire was the main tool for data collection, and structured interviews were conducted with 150 visitors in the spring of 2013. It was revealed that 80.1% of respondents were ready to spend money to use the studied region. In addition, it was found that variables including education, income, interest in nature, membership in environment-advocating associations and organizations, travelling time from departure to the region, non-nativeness and bid had significant effects on probability of respondents' willingness to pay (WTP), but variables such as age and family size were not statistically significant but had some expected signs. Maximum WTP for recreational use was estimated to be 26,049 IRR per person per visit.
ORCID
M. S. Allahyari http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6734-2692