Valoração monetária de benefícios ambientais: o caso do turismo no litoral cearense

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefits of tourism in coastal Fortaleza and surroundings, in the state of Ceará. Such benefits are not liable to be measured through traditional economic theory since they lack market prices. In these cases, however, they can be indirectly measured through the monetary valuation of the arnenities involved by the activity. The traveI cost method was used. This method uses the cost incurred by individuals while traveling to a particular recreational site as the asset price proxy or service expIoited by the activity. The traveI cost, visitation fee, and socioeconomic variabIes were used to estimate the demand curve and the consumer's surpIus. The latter was used as an estimate of the use value of the site. The data used in this work carne from the Tour Demand Research, carried out by the Secretaria do Turismo do Estado do Ceará. The informs refer to the tourists visiting the beaches in the month of November, of 1995. xiii The prome analysis of these tourists showed that the percentage of foreign visitors is still low (7%). Among the domestic tourists, the greater part come from the Southeastern region of Brazil. The results show that 41.2% of tourists were visiting the state for the first time, showing that the activity has to gain new clients. Tourists between 26 and 40 years of age represented 53% of the sample which is a relatively young public in search for leisure and recreation. The sample also showed that the tourists have a relatively high income when compared to the majority of the Brazilian population. Also, they have a high educationallevel. With these, and other information of the socioeconomic characteristics and traveling costs, a function of the tourists demand per beach was estimated. The results led to the conclusion that the demand has a relative low elasticity in regards to price. By integrating thls function, frem the minimum of the traveI cost up to maximum cost, an use value of R$ 144.12 per tourist per day was estimated for the beaches in coastal Ceará. On1y domestic tourists were considered. Thus, one concludes that the beaches in coastal Ceará are an important source of environmental benefits for the Brazilian society and therefore must be preserved. Accordingly, as an environment resource with public assets characteristics they must be preserved either by the federal, state and municipal public authorities.