Visitation frequency and willingness to pay for national marine park conservation and improvement in Thailand

Thailand faces difficulty in financing the conservation and improvement of national parks. This study investigates the effects of visitation frequency on willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental goods given visitors’ recent experiences at the same destination. In total, 592 respondents were interviewed face-to-face in Khao Laem Ya-Mu Ko Samet National Park using the double-bounded, dichotomous choice method. The results indicate that visitation frequency and WTP for national park conservation and improvement have a U-shaped relationship for positive experience visitors. The WTP increases after reaching a certain threshold, indicating that visitation frequency may influence a visitor’s knowledge and thus improve perceived value, leading to a higher WTP. The findings support using visitation frequency in designing a price strategy to ensure the sustainability of national parks.Visitors’ recent experiences at the same destination play a mediating role in determining the relationship between visitation frequency and WTP, reflecting that WTP associated with visitors’ experiences is dynamic over a number of visits.The U-shaped relationship between visitation frequency and the willingness to pay for national park conservation and improvement offers useful information for designing a price strategy.