Valoración de los servicios ecosistémicos culturales de la Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo.

Abstract

The present investigation proposes: to value the cultural ecosystem services of the Chimborazo Wildlife Production Reserve (CHWPR); using the contingent method. It was carried out in 2 phases: the identification of the cultural ecosystem services of the (CHWPR), and the estimation of the availability to pay (ATP) for each cultural ecosystem service. The segment was made up of national and foreign tourists who visited the CHWPR in 2017, which were 128,013, having a total sample of 229. The technique for data collection was the interview, its application was carried out during the months of December 2018 to February 2019. A total of 8 ecosystem services were valued (experiential tourism, ethno tourism, creation of works inspired by nature, spiritual and religious, nature tourism, relaxation, climbing and hiking), for a better understanding and valuation, it was grouped in 2 Categories (Recreation and Cultural Value). Thus, to value economically, an average of ATP was obtained in the recreation category of $ 4.80 and $ 2.70 in the category of cultural value. These values were multiplied by the total of national and foreign tourists over 18 years old that were 111,371, resulting in $ 534,580.80 and $ 300,699 in the estimation of recreational and cultural value respectively. It is concluded that tourists would be willing to allocate a greater proportion of their monthly income to recreation than to cultural value. Keywords: CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES - CULTURAL TOURISM - SUSTAINABLE TOURISM.