Evaluation Waterfalls and Historic Structures in Shushtar

Shushtar waterfalls as one of the ecotourism and geotourism attractions in Khuzestan province, is an important tourism area in Iran. Therefore, study of importance of the natural landscape and historic structures can be useful in forecast needs, removal of shortages and tourism development in the region. In this study willingness to pay by visitors to this site is calculated.. We use contingent valuation method and dichotomous choice questionnaire for this purpose. Samplers were conducted using the 300 questionnaires randomly from the Shushtar’s people in spring 2014. Logit regression model was used in order to estimate the willingness to pay. Average willingness to pay was estimated about 18351.26 Rial and due to the average number of visiting per year, 2.9 times per year, the annual payment have been obtained about 168831.59 Rial for each person. The results shows that the following variables, age, gender, household size, education, income and offered price have significant effects on people's willingness to pay. In the meantime, variables of age, gender, household size and offered price have negative effect and two variables of income and level of education have a positive impact on willingness to pay.