Comparison Of Evaluation Of Urban Water-front Recreation Value Based On CVM And TCM With The Example Of Westlake

Urban waterfront, a symple of city's vitality, is an essencial factor for the development of the city. As landscape, it is also an important part of urban tourism resources. To the famous tourism city--Hangzhou, West Lake has become the "city card" and "the first scence spot", and gets great reputation in the world. Valuating the recreation value of the West Lake plays an important role in summerizing the Hangzhou Tourism development experienses.Continent Valuation Method (CVM) and Travel Cost Method (TCM) are the most widely used methods in the area of environmental resources study today. CVM is widely used in the non-use value assessment for ecological zones, forest parks and scenic areas while TCM is used in tourism District valuation. The author take the example of the West Lake to study the city's waterfront value by these two methods, and meanwhile compare the appliaction of these two methods.From April 2010 to October 2010, the author got the basic data through two large-scale surveys. The adjusted number by the Median of the "willingness to pay" (WTP) is RMB 7.97 per person, the final recreation value of the West Lake on the basis of CVM is RMB 2.391 billion-4.469 billion while it is about RMB 5.257 billion by the TCM calculated by MATLAB. Valuation method by the recreational value calculated is less than through the travel cost method to calculate the results. The result got by the CVM is less than that got by the TCM.The main causes of these differences are as follows:(1) Paying-for starting point difference. (2) Induction difference. Different ways to ask for the paying amount leads to different evaluated results as for the same questionaire. (3) Tourists psychological factors.