Travel cost method (TCM) is based on the demand theory and assumes that the demand for a recreational site is inversely related to the travel costs that a certain visitor must face to enjoy it. The Individual Travel Cost Model (ITCM) has been employed in the research. Thus, the main objective of this study is to estimate the Economic Value of Mount Arayat National Park as a recreational site using the individual travel cost model (ITCM). A researcher-made questionnaire checklist and online survey (google forms) data collection method are employed to obtain the primary data from 235 sample visitors using the purposive sampling technique. Visitors’ visitation records from the management of the park were also used as a secondary data in this study. Peak season (January to April which has an average of 1591 visitors) and the off-season months (May to December which has an average of about 886 visitors) was identified as well as the problems encountered by the visitors during their visitation. This study also suggested strategies that can improve the recreation services of the park. Poisson regression analysis has been conducted to estimate the basic TCM model. The finding for ITCM shows that the Consumer Surplus value per trip is PHP 1,466.60. It was concluded that the aggregate annual Recreational Value of the park is approximately PHP 18.4 million, calculated based on the entire visitors within year 2019.
Santos et al. (Tue,) studied this question.