An empirical investigation of the effects of entrance fees on national park visitors

ABSTRACTThe budget reduction to public lands in the U.S. press parks to generate own revenues. Implementing entrance fees is considered by park management, but there is controversy surrounding the potential impacts on visitation and revenue. Drawing insights from the zero-price effect and the transactional utility theory, this study conducted two separate written vignette experiments targeting different populations to examine the effects of entrance fees on national park visitors’ experiences and behavioural intentions. Participants in each experiment were randomised to one of the three entrance fee conditions. They then read a written vignette describing a visit to a national park and completed a series of survey questions regarding their park experience and behavioural intentions. A total of 272 and 279 responses was gathered in each experiment, respectively. The results revealed that entrance fees do not influence satisfaction. However, the effects of entrance fees on perceived price value and behavioural intentions were found to be mixed. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.KEYWORDS: Pricingentrance feezero-price effecttransactional utilitywritten vignette experimentnational parks Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 We performed the same series of two-way ANOVA with Study 2 sample, and no significant effect was found across the three ANOVA models. Additional informationNotes on contributorsHyunseo (Violet) YoonHyunseo (Violet) Yoon, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreation, Tourism and Therapeutic Recreation at Winona State University. Her primary research interest is to use virtual environments to enhance tourism benefits.Suiwen (Sharon) ZouSuiwen (Sharon) Zou, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on marketing practices that address the financial issues of tourism and leisure services.