Impact of user fees for visitors to national parks in the presence of alternative sites

Abstract

This study proposes an approach using the Kuhn–Tucker model to determine the extent to which the number of visitors to a recreational site would decrease if a user fee were introduced. This approach is promising in terms of consistency with economic theory and computational feasibility, assuming alternative recreational sites exist. An empirical analysis of national parks in Japan shows that a 1000 JPY fee would hardly decrease the number of visitors to a national park, whereas it would decrease the number of visitors to another national park over 45%. The results show that recreational sites with relatively high price elasticities experience a significant decrease in the number of visitors even with low user fees.