A Conjoint Analysis of Evaluating the Tourism Resources: The Case of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the value of tourism resources around Luang Prabang using conjoint analysis and to predict the tourists' responses to tourism development.

First, we briefly explained about the method of environmental valuation, and showed what our study is different from previous studies. Second, we described the history, current situation, and proposed tourism development policies in Luang Prabang. It is famous for not only a World Heritage Site, but also for the scenery of delightful mountain around the town and multi-ethnic groups. However, there is not any well-organized ecotourism tour and visiting a minority village tour. It implies that it would be potential tourism resources unless making use of these tourism resources more efficiently and developing new tourism resources. Third, we used travel mode, six existing tourism resources, and two new tourism resources as attributes, and applied orthogonal main effect design as a profile design. Then, we introduced the random utility model as economic model, and showed how to calculate the Marginal Willingness to Pay. Fourth, we estimated the value of these attributes using conditional logit model. Based on the estimation results, we also calculated marginal willingness to pay for each resource.

The result of our survey showed that Pak Ou Cave and Sae Falls are the highest values of all existing resources. We also included respondents' characteristics such as their nationality and age in our estimation model to examine these influence for site choice. It showed that under-20s had lower value for an artisan village than over-30s. It also found that Asian have higher value for Sae Falls, Ban Sang Hai, Ban Chang, trekking, and an artisan village than other nationalities.