IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v235y2025ics0921800925001156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing individual and social values of cultural services of a protected area through online deliberation

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Haojie
  • Zhang, Tong
  • Costanza, Robert
  • Kubiszewski, Ida
  • Sloggy, Matthew R.
  • Wu, Luhua
  • Luo, Haohan

Abstract

The non-material benefits obtained through interaction with nature are known as cultural services. We employed an online survey to value cultural services provided by the Fanjing Mountain National Nature Reserve, China. The valuation combined a stated-preference approach with online deliberation, where participants considered and discussed the services through typing in chat groups. The services perceived by most participants, in descending order, were spiritual experiences, recreation, aesthetic appreciation, education, and scientific value. In two hypothetical scenarios, where participants were assumed to be potential visitors and local staff (tour guides), respectively, they expressed both individual and social preferences for cultural services. Individual preferences primarily represented their own interests without necessarily or explicitly considering social benefits, whereas social preferences explicitly considered what was right or desirable for society. Overall, the social preferences were lower, more converged, and less affected by demographic variables (e.g., income) than the individual preferences in both scenarios. However, such differences between individual and social preferences were not always statistically significant. Moreover, participants valued cultural services significantly higher as potential tour guides than as visitors, as their psychological states, substitutes for cultural services, prior rights to the services, and certainty in interacting with nature varied with their stakeholder roles.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Haojie & Zhang, Tong & Costanza, Robert & Kubiszewski, Ida & Sloggy, Matthew R. & Wu, Luhua & Luo, Haohan, 2025. "Assessing individual and social values of cultural services of a protected area through online deliberation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:235:y:2025:i:c:s0921800925001156
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108632
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800925001156
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108632?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:235:y:2025:i:c:s0921800925001156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.