TITLE:
Economic Value and Historical Scenic Beauty: The Case of Chinampas (Raised Beds) in Xochimilco, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mexico
AUTHORS:
Daniel A. Revollo-Fernández
KEYWORDS:
Contingent Valuation, Historical Scenic Beauty, Urban Wetland, Chinampas, UNESCO World Heritage Site
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Resources,
Vol.6 No.4,
April
22,
2015
ABSTRACT: This article estimates the historical scenic beauty’s economic value that tourists do have to preserve a pre-Hispanic farm production system dating from XIV to XVI century to be known as chinampas (raised beds) and is located in Mexico City. Therefore, in order to do this, surveys are performed and by contingent valuation (CV), the willingness-to-pay (WTP) is estimated. The best estimation points out that tourists are willing to pay 24.4 dollars around each year, and by means of such estimation, it is estimated that the cultural service’s economic value to preserve raised beds is between US$ 3000 and US$ 3700 per hectare. Such found value must be used as another input for decision makers when dealing with projects and/or policies facing contrary purposes. The analysis is innovative in the sense that there is almost no CV literature to estimate the economic value of historical scenic beauty.