'Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM Press)'
Abstract
The growing numbers of national parks worldwide have somehow attracted the interests of nations around the world as
it is now one of the important income generator for the tourism industry of a particular country. Since its inauguration,
the concept of national parks has developed and expanded based on the important attributes of its environmental
resources, albeit it is frequently affiliated to the possibilities of conservation and preservation of the biodiversity and its
environment. The central motivation for this study is to estimate visitor’s preferences for improvement in ecotourism and
management in Kubah National Park (KNP) by utilizing the economic valuation tools, specifically the choice experiment
(CE) model. Accordingly, the focus of this study is limited to the valuation of ecotourism and management attributes
of KNP, Sarawak, Malaysia. Choice experiment of the stated preference approach was utilized and five attributes
of ecotourism and management attributes were identified, namely; (i) amenities (AMT), (ii) information availability
(INFO), (iii) interpretive trails availability (ITA), (iv) park guide availability (PG) and (v) entrance fee charges (MPRICE).
Information and statistics were gathered using questionnaires from face-to face interviews. Conditional logit (CLGT)
model analyses involving a sample of 303 respondents was carried out
