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Keywords Heritage, Economic value added
Abstract This paper presents the results of a choice experiment carried out from August to October 2000 on the visitors of the Galleria Borghese Museum, a worldwide known heritage site located in Rome. The main objective of this work is to study the relevancy of choice experiment techniques as a tool aimed at measuring economic values and assessing user preferences concerning the multi-attribute and multi-value services as supplied by cultural institutions. A set of alternative incremental changes in service attributes showing improvements in supply are designed and presented to visitors. Alternative conditional logit specifications are used for analysing stated choices over the hypothetical incremental changes in museum attributes. Willingness to pay for incremental variations concerning site attributes is positive and statistically significant for most changes. Conditional logit specifications, which incorporate heterogeneity by adding interaction socio-economic terms, are generally robust and do not violate the HA assumption. In addition, in the present case study, non-ILA models do not outperform conditional logit models. Choice experiments confirm as being a practical and effective tool for non-market valuation, and they should be used to provide information to decision makers for justifying demand led policies.
1. Introduction
The task of estimating economic values generated by the stock of cultural heritage is increasingly recognised as a fundamental part of cultural policy. There are powerful arguments for using economic valuation to advise microeconomic policy decisions in the cultural heritage sector. Public institutions are required to justify their expenditure decisions or requests for funding in terms of generated "user benefits", those who are unable to do so might find their subsidies and private sponsorships reduced. In a world where visitors are income constrained and are getting more sophisticated, cultural sites have to renew themselves - enhancing and differentiating the product quality to compete and survive. Therefore, a consumer-oriented approach has increasingly taken over traditional supply driven-top down approaches concerning cultural heritage management. Consequently, market studies are necessary tools to evaluate demand features, strong marketing strategies are needed to generate awareness, attract new visitors, encourage repeat visits, and economic policies should be oriented to "capture" a larger share of consumer surplus. The development of appropriate valuation tools is necessary insofar as cultural markets do not routinely transmit...