Portsmouth Business School

Thesis summary

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are specially designated zones of the sea that are designed to restore marine ecosystem to the original state by excluding all detrimental human activities. MPAs have been proposed in many countries as a means of conserving parts of the marine environment and at the same time, MPAs can also result in economic benefits to recreational users of the marine environment. Under the background, the main purposes of this thesis are to estimate economic benefit of recreational visitors derived from a case study MPA by using non-market valuation technique and to review tourism in MPAs under the tourism economics point of view.

A travel cost model was estimated in order to measure the non-market recreational benefits ofLundyIslandmarine nature reserve (MNR) which contains the first no take zone in theUKwater. Poisson regression analysis was selected for modeling the recreation demand, while the data used in the study was obtained through an on-site questionnaire survey for recreational visitors to the Lundy MNR. Estimated mean WTP for visiting Lundy MNR ranged from £256 to £389. This result provides a strong economic justification for designating MPAs for recreational (and conservation) purposes. One interesting finding is a negative coefficient on the income variable, which indicates relatively lower income respondents had a tendency to visit Lundy MNR more frequently during last three years. From this, one possible conclusion is that domestic MPA tourism can be a substitute good for international tourism.

This study is particularly significant because it is the first approach to carry out an economic analysis of MPAs in the UK, where tourism demand for unspoiled natural area is currently rising. In addition, this thesis provided recommendations for successful settlement of national MPA system in theRepublicofKorea.