Willingness to pay for biodiesel fuel for tourist boats in Halong Bay, Vietnam

Abstract

According to Situation Report on pollution of coastal areas in Vietnam, surface waters and coastal sediments in Ha Long Bay have high oil-pollution level as much as eighteen times higher than Vietnamese standard limits. The development of economic society, especially the rapid growth of the tourism industry and shipping in recent years, has led to dramatically increase the tourist boats which are operated and anchored in Ha Long Bay. About 600 tourist boats are operating, but only 20 percent of them are equipped with waste treatment standards, account for much of oil-pollution. In order to solve this problem, we propose using of biodiesel fuel with many environmentally friendly features, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and less harmful to the environment for the tourist boats in Ha Long Bay, to replace fossil fuels which are depleted day by day. At this stage, however we cannot estimate the cost of biodiesel fuel comparing with that of fossil fuels. Then we study on willingness of three groups: the local governments, tourist boat companies and visitors to pay more for utilization of biodiesel fuel than fossil fuels. We used the contingent valuation method which estimates values for all kinds of ecosystem and environmental services. The group of governments decided pay one time the wage of a day 200,000VND (around 0.948 USD with the exchange rate 21,100VND/USD) or 13,333VND (0.063USD) per month. The average value that tourist companies are willing to pay more is 2,383,333VND (113USD) per month. Group of foreign visitors is willing to pay more around 291,854VND (138.3USD) and Vietnamese visitors are willing to pay more 195,119VND (92.4USD) to convert using the biodiesel fuel for tourist boats in Halong Bay, Vietnam.