Social Economic Benefits of an Underground Heritage: Measuring Willingness to Pay for Karst Caves in Italy

Karst caves are widespread in Europe, especially in the Mediterranean area. Besides
their purely environmental functions, they often are important tourist destinations and
contribute to the so-called identity amenities or landscape beauties of a territory. In
spite of their interest and tourism potential, economists have paid little attention to karst
caves and their economic value. In this paper, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM)
was applied to investigate tourists’ preferences and estimate the monetary value
attributed to karst caves, and in particular to the Pradis Caves, Friuli Venezia Giulia
region (Italy). 540 visitors of the area took part in a face-to-face contingent valuation
survey. Mean willingness-to-pay was equal to € 5.37. When scaled up to the
population, gross social benefit was estimated in about € 23K/year. Findings suggest
that the karst cave value could have a significant impact on the social welfare gains or
losses, and inform the karst cave-use management debate concerning the trade-offs of
developing tourism activities. The estimated values allow institutional decision makers
to identify the volume of financial resources to be put into play for interventions aimed
at protection and conservation of this environmental asset.