Economic Value of Urban Green Space : A Travel Cost Approach for Viharamahadevi Urban Park, Sri Lanka

Urban green spaces could bring cities and their inhabitants with vitality in terms of ecological,social, and economic benefits. Recognising and estimation of economic values of parks is important fortheir sound management and for justification of the current use over various alternative uses. Nonrecognition of values of the services of such green spaces may lead to unsound management anddegradation resulting in depriving urban communities of those benefits. Viharamahadevi Urban Park isthe oldest and largest park in Colombo which offers recreation and green space to the inhabitants andvisitors of the city. The purpose of this study is to estimate the recreational value of the Park usingIndividual Travel Cost Method (ITCM). Visitors of Viharamahadevi Urban Park selected usingpurposive sampling method were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Data on visitationfrequencies, preferences for park characteristics and socio economic parameters were collected usingface-to-face interviews. In order to cater for the data issues of the ITCM, a zero truncated negativebinomial regression analysis was performed in estimating the demand function. Results indicate thathousehold income and the enjoyment of the visitors significantly and positively determine the number ofvisits made by the people. The annual social welfare generated from the recreational value of theViharamahadevi Park is LKR 55.7 billion. The estimated value will be able to provide significantguidance towards future park management decisions