Scientific Literature: Searchable Database

We use a discrete choice experiment to estimate how changes in tour attributes affects Salish Sea tourist willingness to pay for whale watching tours. We find that tourists are willing to pay the most to view orcas from a close viewing distance for at least 40 minutes with less boats in proximity. We use a latent class model to show that our sample exhibits clear heterogeneity for the number of boats in proximity and the viewing distance. We use opt-out coefficients and total willingness-to-pay estimates to estimate tourist demand for various tour specifications. Our results indicate that tourists with a total willingness-to-pay nearest to average ticket prices are willing to pay the most for close viewing distances. Therefore, we find that viewing distance affects demand for whale watching tickets the most. We estimate changes in ticket demand of up to 7% due to changes in tour whale viewing distance.