Entrance and Activity Fees (Tourism)

2.   Methodology

2.3.3      Social process and safeguards

The PA agency should meet with government officials, legal counsel, and other key stakeholder groups – including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and the private sector – to agree on fee design features. By working collaboratively through participatory planning, effective partnerships can be established between multiple stakeholders, and community consensus, engagement, and capacity can be built. It is much easier to achieve this at the planning stage than it is when fees have already been established. Bunaken National Park Advisory Board is an example of a genuine and effective community partnership that has played a role in conflict resolution between stakeholders in the development of an entrance fee system, overseeing participatory zonation of the MPA and communicating community views to the relevant authorities (UNDP 2012).

  • For any partnership to be successful, managers must ensure that (Leung et al. 2018):

  • All partners decide on, understand and agree to their roles and responsibilities and document them in writing

  • All those involved equally shoulder the duties and commitment

  • The partnership is mutually beneficial

  • Mechanisms are in place to evaluate the success and benefits of the partnership

  • Open and honest communication is a priority

If a site or PA has social objectives, these must be incorporated into the pricing structure. Multi-tiered pricing can be used to encourage local visitation and education (and ultimately encourage local support for the mechanism and an interest in conservation), or to boost local business opportunities through an increase in visitor numbers (Leung et al. 2018). For example, offering discounts and fee waivers to national residents, local communities, schools, children, university students, and researchers can encourage learning and help to build public support for conservation in the site itself and beyond – even if only for one day a month or outside of peak times (Lindberg 2001). Scaling fees by residency can be a particularly useful tool to capture the relatively high WTP from international visitors, without excluding residents (Eagles 2002). For example, to enter the Galapagos National Park, foreign visitors over 12 years old pay US$100, foreign children pay US$50, whereas Ecuadorian nationals over 12 pay US$6 and Ecuadorian children pay $3 (Epler 2007).  Similarly, Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya charges non-residents upwards of $80/day, and residents and/or citizens less than $10/day.   

Differential pricing systems can also be used to charge different rates depending on the services used, e.g. scuba diving, which people tend to be willing to pay relatively high fees for (Peters & Hawkins 2009), is priced differently to other water-based activities in Bonaire National Marine Park; DCNA 2014). A combination of per-day fees and annual pass or loyalty card options also helps tailor fee systems to different types of visitors, which can be beneficial both in terms of revenue generation and visitor acceptance of fees (Lindberg 2001). However, the more complicated the pricing strategy the more complicated and time-consuming the payment reconciliation and reporting system will be (Leung et al. 2018).

Building community revenue-sharing agreements into fee system design can be an effective way to maximise socio-economic benefits for local communities and build support for conservation and tourism (Spenceley, Snyman & Rylance 2017). For example, in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, where endangered mountain gorillas are the primary tourist attraction and viewing fees are fixed at US$1500 for all, a revenue-sharing scheme channels ten (previously five) percent of revenues from fees to community projects around the PA (Nielsen & Spenceley 2010). Between 2005 and 2010, around US$428,000 was directly invested in community projects including school building, food security initiatives, tree planting, and water tank installations. However, structural constraints, such as limited participation of the most socially and economically disadvantaged residents in proximity to the PA, may be limiting the impact of the scheme (Sabuhoro et al. 2015; Munanura et al. 2016).