Preservative Value of Rudkhan Castle: Protest, Uncertainty, and Unwillingness Behaviors

Economic appraisal of historical sites is the key to planning rural development for their management, preservation, and protection. The purpose of this study was to estimate the preservation use value accrued to visitors to Rudkhan Castle in the northwest of Gilan Province, Iran. The visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) was measured by using the contingent valuation method (CVM) and the one-and-one-half-bound (OOHB) model’s dichotomous choice (DC) questionnaire. Throughout the research, we stressed the fact that indifference, uncertain, and protest behavior can and do occur simultaneously in contingent valuation (CV) studies. The results showed that 75% of the people in the protection program of Ghaleh RudKhan Castle are willing to pay. The rest are not willing to contribute and are divided into three groups: unwilling to pay (4%), protests (20%), and uncertain (1%). Using the OOHB bid function, an expected WTP recreational value of US$ 0.566 per visit per household was estimated in 2019, and the annual welfare surplus of visitors was estimated at US$ 96250000. The average WTP in the ethical and consequentialist groups was estimated at US$ 0.643 and 0.67325, respectively. Also, the group unwilling to pay or true zeros was composed of seven respondents who explained their reasons as personal budget restrictions (86%) and the unnecessity of the program (14%). The protests group was also composed of 33 respondents and argued that it is only the task of the government (38%), only rural residents should pay (3%), only nonresidents should pay (56%), and not enough information is given on the proposal (3%).