Tourist Preferences for Whale Watching and Rule Changes in the Salish Sea

Abstract

While natural resource valuation research has long accounted for heterogeneity in willingness-to-pay, recent studies consider whether estimated heterogeneity is primarily driven by a population of people with different preferences, or instead by differences in the attributes to which respondents attend. We illustrate how the interpretational assumptions underlying estimated heterogeneity, captured through a latent class model and attribute non-attendance (ANA) frameworks, dramatically affect policy conclusions using data from our survey on tourist preferences for whale watching in the Salish Sea. ANA modeling erroneously segments tourists that did attend to the viewing distance and are willing to pay to view whales from farther away with viewing distance non-attenders, indicating that viewing distance rule changes would likely threaten whale watching industry viability. Alternatively, our latent class model indicates that while viewing distance changes do affect demand for whale watching tours, they are unlikely to threaten industry viability. Additional important attributes include: type of whale viewed, number of boats in proximity, and amount of time spent with whales. Our results indicate that accounting for heterogeneity with latent class analysis yields more informative policy analysis and welfare estimates than assuming estimated heterogeneity is due to survey ANA behavior that would alter revealed preference decision making.

Keywords: Discrete Choice Experiment, attribute non-attendance, whale watching, TOURISM, non-market valuation