Estimating the Economic Value of Ichan Kala Using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM)

Abstract

The objective of this study is to estimate the use-value of Ichan Kala, a historical city located in Khiva, Uzbekistan, that is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It also investigates the visitors’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the economic value of Ichan Kala. The survey was collected from 391 samples, and the factor analysis was done based on the results. After extracting two factors from 11 questions (variables), those factors were used as independent variables to check their impact on WTP. This study involved the contingent valuation method (CVM) to evaluate travelers’ WTP for using Ichan Kala. The outcomes of this research are in line with economic theory, which remarks that visitors’ willingness-to-pay declines as the suggested bid amount increases. In addition, the identity of cultural worldview (ICW) and tangibility of cultural worldview (TCW) showed a positive and significant effect on the WTP, while travel expenses did not remarkably affect the WTP. The results of this study provide practical implications for the government of the city or region when deciding on the entrance fee for using Ichan Kala. Moreover, this study makes an important contribution to the existent study since it is one of the few endeavors to estimate the WTP of the Central Asian inhabitants regarding the travel destination. Previous studies have estimated the use-value of destinations from Europe, the USA, and East Asia, but those studies mostly observed travelers from parallel countries. This research is therefore distinctive because both the travel site and survey sample was taken from Central Asia, specifically from Uzbekistan. This study reports the mindsets of Central Asian people towards paying the charge of using a travel destination; it may thereby function as a baseline study from which forthcoming studies may compare the behaviors of people living in this region with people living in other regions in terms of the estimation of non-market assets.