Recreational value estimation of suburban leisure agriculture: a case study of the Qianjiangyue agritourism farm

As a form of economic and community development, agritourism has a strong and widespread appeal to all tourists. To explore the situation and value of agritourism in China, the Qianjiangyue agritourism farm located between Fuzhou City and Yongtai County was chosen to evaluate recreational values. The data was obtained from tourists and farm samples in Qianjiangyue agritourism farm by questionnaires. Two basic models including the zonal travel cost method (ZTCM) and the individual travel cost method (ITCM) were applied for data analysis. The recreational value estimation results obtained from ITCM and ZTCM showed that the total consumer surplus (CS) of the Qianjiangyue agritourism farm in 2011 was estimated at 54,533,300 CNY (8,894,682 US$) which was equal to a CS per tourist of 3029.63 CNY (494.15 US$), and the annual recreational value of agricultural landscapes per hm 2 was 361,078 CNY (58,893.82 US$). The average annual recreational value of agritourism farmland was 15.7 times of that from traditional farming, and 6 times of present land business income. This paper will be helpful for exploring and utilizing appropriate environmental resources in China.