THE 14TH PASIFIC REGIONAL SCIENCE CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION SUMMER INSTITUTE
Abstract
Rural tourism proposes a way of earning additional income from a traditional livelihood. Rural tourism encourages rural economics and provides benefits to income and employment generation. It is considered as an alternative for enhancing rural lifestyle and for leading positive changes in the distribution of income. Tourism at a rural area supports to stimulate the rural economy and plays an important role in producing a value-added for local products. Many of the rural tourism activities are nature-based tourism or ecotourism. Rural tourism can be classified as possessing public goods-type characteristics, and as such, welfare benefit estimates must utilize non-market valuation techniques. This study employ the travel cost method and contingent valuation method. Travel cost and contingent valuation methods are applied to the problem of estimating the potential consumer surplus available to tourists from rural tourism in Yogyakarta. Data are derived from surveys of tourists in Yogyakarta. The results are compared with contingent valuation analysis of willingness-to-pay of tourists in their current visit to rural tourism sites of Yogyakarta. The result of travel cost method indicates that tourists’ average travel cost is estimated at IDR 122,050. The contingent valuation method concludes that the tourists’ average willingness to pay in their visit to rural tourism sites of Yogyakarta is estimated at a reasonable amount of IDR 6,750.