Managing Routes and Trails - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 232

will help increase prominence and visitation to their linear corridors. Examples
include the Boston Freedom Trail, and to a certain extent the Titanic Trail in
Belfast, Northern Ireland, which Boyd (2008) noted was equally important as
the visitor attraction (Titanic Belfast) itself in marketing the fateful ship's links
to Belfast and to position the city as a maritime heritage destination.
Implementing fees/funding arrangements
User fees have been a common pricing technique employed by resource
managers, often involving introducing an entrance fee or elevating an exist-
ing price (Garrod, 2008). The former is used to mitigate impacts occurring
from high levels of use, the latter often becomes a strategy to moderate levels
of demand. Garrod sees the latter approach being similar to the 'user-pays'
principle, where the expectation is that users also have an obligation toward
the costs of maintaining places. This can, however, be unpopular among
managers when user demand is usually low, and equally unpopular with
visitors who may question why they have to pay to use what they essentially
see as part of their own heritage to begin with. The strengths and weak-
nesses of entrance fees have been well debated in the literature but more so
for heritage visitor attractions, often of an area focus, such as parks and
gardens (Garrod & Fyall, 2000; Timothy & Boyd, 2003), as opposed to linear
spaces where there is often some element of recreational activity involved.
Willingness to pay (WtP) has received considerably more research attention
in the recreation literature (e.g. Binkley & Mendelsohn, 1987; Ferris, 1996;
Snyder & Smail, 2009) than in the tourism literature (e.g. Garrod & Fyall,
2000; Timothy & Boyd, 2003). There has been some research on WtP within
trails settings, both for recreation and tourism consumers. Bennett et al.
(2003) employed a contingent valuation survey for the Ridgeway National
Trail in England and found that users had a mean willingness to pay for
access, a modest sum of £1.24 per visit. When considered against the number
of users, this level of willingness helped to offset the costs of trail mainte-
nance. The next case study explores the potential of WtP by tourists to offset
the cost of water trail management.
Case Study: Willingness to Pay and Paddle Trail
Development, North Carolina, USA
Kline et al. (2012) examined WtP as a management measure for kayakers
and canoeists on paddle trails in North Carolina, USA. North Carolina
has over 6000 km of estuarine and oceanic shoreline, 61,000 km of rivers
and creeks, offering users 150 paddle trails throughout the state. They
examined a number of funding options, including user fees, vessel regis-
tration, paddling licenses, sales tax on equipment, other fees or no fees