Visitors' experience with conservation areas and their willingness-to-pay for the preservation of old-growth forests

The experience of recreationists is known to influence their willingness-to-pay for conservation. This paper presents key findings from a survey of visitors to three old-growth forests in Austria, Italy and Belgium. The results show that respondents hold preferences for nature conservation in regard to the expansion of old-growth and more naturally managed forests for their recreational purposes. Respondents indicated that they would be willing to pay between €2.1 and €4.1 per person a day to fund conservation management. The questionnaire identified the paths and areas where visitors spent their time in the forest. This approach makes it easier to distinguish between the actual use and the presence of old-growth forest. Visitors who experienced old-growth forests also expressed a higher willingness-to-pay for the conservation of these ecosystems. This is also an important finding for conservation management: While there are differences between socio-economic groups and the three forests, visitors who experienced the old-growth forests had a higher willingness-to-pay of roughly €1 per person a day. These results clearly show that visitors value recreation in old-growth forests, and that conservation management could capitalize on this higher valuation by directing visitors to areas associated with high biodiversity values while protecting sensitive areas and funding conservation activities. • Old-growth forests provide unique recreational experiences for visitors, and are also perceived as such. • The perception of the conservation status is mixed even in long-standing parks. • The recreation value of visitors depends on the areas of recreation evaluated by indicating the areas on maps. • Willingness-to-pay of visitors for conservation depends on variables connecting the recreational experience to the naturalness of the forest. • Management and planning can contribute to conservation funding by adding a conservation surcharge on existing fees.