Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

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Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Case Study

The economic recreational value of a white stork nesting colony:

A case of stork village in Poland
Miko1aj Czajkowski a, *, Marek Giergiczny a, Jakub Kronenberg b, Piotr Tryjanowski c
a

University of Warsaw, Department of Economic Sciences, Duga 44/50, 00-241 Warsaw, Poland
University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, P.O.W. 3/5, 90-255 Lodz, Poland
c
Poznan University of Life Sciences, Institute of Zoology, Wojska Polskiego 71 C, 60-625 Poznan, Poland
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 15 February 2013
Accepted 17 July 2013

In this paper, we estimate the economic value of selected ecosystem services provided by white storks in
a Polish stork village. A stork village is a common name for a village with a white stork breeding colony,
often inhabited by more storks than people. Zywkowo, the best known stork village in Poland, receives
approximately 2000e5000 tourists annually, many of whom come from abroad. The village has
approximately 20e40 white stork nests and several amenities designed to improve its recreational
attractiveness. To estimate the economic benets provided by the stork village, we apply the Travel Cost
Method (TCM). This study is the rst of this type for a stork village and the rst related to the value of
birds in Poland. Our results represent a useful contribution to tourism management, indicating that
nature has economic value and illustrating how this value can be translated into economic benets. It
also serves as a clear illustration that the degradation of nature may entail economic losses.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Recreational value of birds
Valuation of non-market goods
Travel Cost Method
Birdwatching
Avitourism
Birds and ecosystem services

1. Introduction
Birds attract not only the attention of birdwatchers but also
other tourists, especially when a given species is easy for the general public to watch (Prokop & Rodk, 2009; Whelan, Wenny, &
Marquis, 2008). Similar to rarity, other exceptional circumstances
related to birds (such as particular type of nesting or behaviour)
reduce the dissuasive effect of distance which tourists are willing to
travel or of the prices they are willing to pay to enjoy a particular
spectacle (Nicolau & Ms, 2006). Colonial nesting of white storks
(Ciconia ciconia) provides an example of such an exceptional sight,
and we use it to illustrate the recreational value of birds. Our study
aims to demonstrate how tourism and conservation can mutually
support each other. We use an economic method to illustrate the
broad economic benets related to maintaining a site for the
benet of both tourism and conservation.
The white stork is a charismatic species and an icon of nature
conservation (Schulz, 1998; Tryjanowski, Sparks, & Jerzak, 2006).
Approximately 23% of the global white stork population breeds in

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 48 507056557; fax: 48 228312846.

E-mail addresses: miq@wne.uw.edu.pl (M. Czajkowski), mgiergiczny@
wne.uw.edu.pl
(M.
Giergiczny),
kronenbe@uni.lodz.pl
(J.
Kronenberg),
piotr.tryjanowski@gmail.com (P. Tryjanowski).
0261-5177/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.07.009

Poland. It is one of the most widely recognized bird species by

nature lovers and the general public. The bird is large (2 m wingspan), long-lived (c. 30 years) and generally both site- and matefaithful. White storks nest in close proximity to human
settlements, are generally welcomed and tolerated, and even
viewed as part of the family. People like to see storks in their
natural environment, especially in large numbers, which is possible
in so-called stork villages. In Poland, there are at least 10 white
stork colonies counting at least 10 pairs each (Tryjanowski et al.,
2006), probably the best known of which is Zywkowo. In the
past, colony nesting was more common (Lewandowski &
Radkiewicz, 1991); today only a small part of the eastern European population of white stork lives in breeding colonies e solitary
nesting is much more common. Thus, people decide to visit a stork
village not only to see this particular species but also to experience
a stork atmosphere (Dolata, 2006).
Tourism and conservation can mutually support each other as
long as the tourism carrying capacity is respected (Collins-Kreiner,
Malkinson, Labinger, & Shtainvarz, 2013). Management of natural
tourist sites is entangled in numerous additional considerations e
for the main attraction to remain there as a magnet for tourists,
specic management is required, maintaining its connections with
a larger network of natural areas (Puhakka, Salo, & Sksjrvi,
2011). Managing natural areas is complex and involves looking
not only at the main attraction (the specic phenomenon of white

M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

stork colonial nesting in our case) but also at the complex system
on which its presence depends. For example, in a stork village, the
relevant decisions need to ensure the availability of the surrounding foraging grounds for white storks which may entail additional
costs. In such circumstances, it is useful to be able to estimate an
economic value of benets related to ecosystem management and
contrast it with the costs which may be raised by some other
stakeholders.
There are different types of birdwatchers, with different needs
and interests, just as there are different types of nature-based
tourists in general (Mehmetoglu, 2007). Some of these classications are based on how many birdwatching trips they undertake
per year and on their identication skills e from casual or novice to
advanced or experienced (Hvenegaard, 2002; McFarlane, 1994;
Scott, Ditton, Stoll, & Eubanks, 2005; Scott & Thigpen, 2003). In
particular in the case of specialized birdwatchers, the rarer an
observed species is, the higher is its recreational value (Booth,
Gaston, Evans, & Armsworth, 2011). Although rarity sometimes
brings tourism in conict with the protection of a resource (Karp &
Guevara, 2011; Kerbiriou et al., 2009), the direct negative impacts of
protection on tourism may be offset by the future benets related
to maintaining this resource (Gilbert & Halstead, 1997). This highlights the sustainability aspect of tourism; indeed, not all of what is
broadly called ecotourism can be dened as sustainable (Sharpley,
2006; Simpson, 2009; Steele, 1995).
Classications and categorizations are all the more important as
majority of those who classify themselves as birdwatchers in US
surveys are able to recognize only up to 20 bird species (Scott et al.,
2005). These casual birdwatchers also constitute the main group
that visits stork villages in Poland. To avoid conict between
tourism and conservation, it is particularly important to bring to
the attention of the broader public those resources which are not
endangered and yet can be considered very interesting. In this way,
at least some tourists are diverted away from places where their
presence might be less desired from a conservation point of view. A
stork village features a species which is common in Poland and
accustomed to the presence of people, and yet it is an important
tourist attraction. Consequently, using an example of such a charismatic species, a stork village provides a good opportunity for
environmental education of tourists which is yet another aspect of
its recreational value.
1.1. Economic value of a birdwatching site
Birdwatching is increasingly perceived as an important segment
of the tourism and recreation market (Carver, 2009; Connell, 2009;
Watson, 2010). Indeed, it is one of the fastest growing segments of
ecotourism (Cordell & Herbert, 2002; Roe, Leader-Williams, &
Dalal-Clayton, 1997; Sekercioglu, 2002). The idea that birdwatching
provides an economic opportunity to foster tourism (often referred
to as avitourism) has been embraced by governments and aid
agencies (Biggs, Turpie, Fabricius, & Spenceley, 2011; CBI, 2011; DTI,
2010), event managers and tour operators (Che, 2004; Kim, Scott,
Thigpen, & Kim, 1998; Scott & Callahan, 2000) and conservation
organizations alike (Molloy, Thomas, & Morling, 2011; Rayment &
Dickie, 2001; RSPB, 2010). Opportunities to develop birdwatching
tourism are being explored in locations with little previous experience in this area but with important natural resources (Hottola,
2009; Lee, Lee, Kim, & Mjelde, 2010; Li, Qi, & Yang, 2013).
Following the above approach, the value of birdwatching sites or
the sites of birdwatching-related events is most often discussed
from the perspective of how much birdwatchers spend on accommodation and other local goods and services (Gilbert &
Halstead, 1997; Hvenegaard, Butler, & Krystoak, 1989; Kerlinger
& Brett, 1995). This has clear implications for tourism

353

management, indicating potential economic gains related to preparing and maintaining a viable offer for birdwatchers. For conservation organizations, the main objective of highlighting the
economic opportunities related to avitourism (or ecotourism in
general) is to demonstrate the opportunity costs of pursuing
environmentally damaging alternative projects (i.e. the value lost
due to selecting such projects and foregoing conservation).
Although the above focus on direct expenditure is useful to inform
decisions regarding tourism management, these decisions also need
to be put in the broader context of the value that people attach to
nature. Modern discussions on the various aspects of the economic
value of nature have been carried out at least since the 1940s (CiriacyWantrup, 1947; Hotelling, 1947). They have recently gained momentum with the popularity of the concept of ecosystem services, i.e.
the benets that people derive from the functioning of ecosystems
(Farber, Costanza, & Wilson, 2002; de Groot, Wilson, & Boumans,
2002; Kumar, 2010). One of the examples of ecosystem services is
the recreational potential of nature which of course is much broader
than what tourists spend on travel, food and accommodation. Still,
recreation only represents the use value of nature and does not
inform us about another broad category of non-use value.
Methods used to estimate the net economic benets related to
birdwatching tourism (consumer surplus) offer an opportunity to
capture a bigger part of these broader values. These benets can be
calculated to highlight the social importance of birdwatching
(Eubanks, Stoll, & Ditton, 2004) or, more specically, to provide
arguments for new management schemes for bird-related tourist
destinations (Naidoo & Adamowicz, 2005) or events (Lee et al.,
2010). Thus, such studies may indicate to what extent the local
earnings could increase had the economic potential of tourism
been harnessed to a larger extent (not necessarily in terms of
increasing tourist numbers, rather by improving the services
offered to tourists and changing site access regimes).
Some approaches used so far to estimate this broader value of
birdwatching sites included adding simple contingent questions to the
surveys eliciting information on tourist spending. For example,
Hvenegaard et al. (1989) and Eubanks et al. (2004) asked about the
highest acceptable increase of the trips cost before a tourist decides
not to go birdwatching in the places they were studying. A more
complex approach (known as a choice experiment) requires designing
different hypothetical scenarios that involve changes to some important attributes of a birdwatching site or event and the related cost.
Respondents rank these scenarios, indicating how much they value
the different attributes (Lee et al., 2010; Naidoo & Adamowicz, 2005).
Urban and Melichar (2008) and Kaval and Roskruge (2009) provided
useful reviews of several dozen contingent valuation studies of birds.
However, these methods focus on stated preferences (declared by the
tourists), and depict mostly non-use values.
Revealed preference valuation techniques, such as the Travel
Cost Method (TCM), make it possible to estimate the (recreational)
use value of birds. They only indirectly incorporate some other
aspects of the birds cultural importance, such as the species
occurring in folklore and literature. However, these types of studies
are relatively rare, partly because the values estimated with the
TCM are associated with a specic location, rather than a particular
species. Thus, using the TCM to estimate the recreational value of a
given species is plausible when a particular species attracts visitors
to a specic location. However, it is relatively rare that a place is
visited solely because of birds or especially an individual bird
species.
1.2. Birdwatching and the travel cost method
In the TCM, the value of a given good e storks in stork villages in
our case e is estimated based on how much people pay to access

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M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

and use this good. In the absence of access prices, the willingness
to pay for observing stork colonies is associated with the costs that
people pay to travel to a stork village. These costs include both
direct travel costs and the cost of time spent travelling. By examining the distances that visitors travel and the related costs, it is
possible to calculate the net benets that they derive from their
visits. The demand function illustrates the relationship between
travel costs and the number of visits, and the net benets (consumer surplus) are equal to the difference between what people are
willing to pay and what they actually pay.
One of the earliest applications of the TCM to value birds relied
on zonal averages to estimate the value of a swallow roost in
Pembroke, Ontario, Canada (Clark, 1987). As in the case of stork
villages, the study focused on common birds in an uncommon
setting e the roosting of up to 150,000 swallows. The swallow roost
attracted up to 10,000 visitors annually, and a guest book held by a
local bird club was used as a basis for further calculations. The TCM
was used to calculate intangible social benets. Apart from costs
related to travel (vehicle costs), Clark (1987) calculated the costs of
the time spent travelling, accommodation, and food. The net
benet to visitors (consumer surplus) was calculated at 5.06 USD
per visit or 35,400 USD per year in total. In our study, we conservatively decided to omit the two latter categories (accommodation
and food), as it is believed that they may be associated with goods
other than the birds (Fletcher, Adamowicz, & Graham-Tomasi,
1990). Besides, in the case of Zywkowo, there are no formal accommodation opportunities, and there is no place to procure food
there.
Navrud and Mungatana (1994) combined the TCM with a
contingent valuation of Lake Nakuru National Park (LNNP) in Kenya
that owes its popularity to large numbers of amingoes. The study
was based on a sample of 185 visitors in 1991, when the total
number of visitors amounted to 178,881. For multiple visits, they
estimated the recreational value of amingo viewing as the part of
the value of the overall visit to LNNP proportional to the percentage
of time spent amingo viewing. Both zonal and individual observations were included in this study. According to its results, the
total recreational value of visiting LNNP in 1991 was 13.7e15.1
million USD, of which the recreational value of amingo viewing
was estimated at 5.0e5.5 million USD.
Becker, Inbar, Bahat & Choresh (2010) combined the TCM with a
contingent valuation of Griffon Vultures in two nature reserves in
Israel to estimate the marginal value of a single bird for the purposes of evaluating the efciency of its protection measures. In the
TCM component of their study, Becker et al. (2010) also used a zonal
approach and regression analysis with a semi-log functional form.
The sample included 449 questionnaires and the site is visited by
about 100,000 people annually. The total values of both reserves as
sites for viewing vultures were estimated at 2.5 million USD and
9.84 million USD, as of the end of April 2004.
Grlk and Rehber (2008) estimated the economic value of
Kuscenneti National Park at Lake Manyas in Turkey as a recreational
birdwatching site. They also followed a zonal approach and performed a regression analysis, using data from 228 interviews and a
census of park visitors (ca. 10,000 people visit the site per year).
Grlk and Rehber (2008) estimated the consumer surplus at 2.6e
4.7 USD per person or a total of 103 million USD annually, indicating
that this value far exceeds the annual investment and operation
expenditures of the National Park.
One of the most recent studies (Edwards, Parsons, & Myers,
2011) adopted a negative binomial count data model, paying special attention to potential biases introduced by on-site sampling.
Their study area was Delaware Bay in the US, where thousands of
birds feed during their spring migrations, attracting signicant
numbers of birdwatchers (5583 in the spring of 2008). The sample

included 224 questionnaires and the focus was not on zones but the
individual households that visitors represented. Edwards et al.
(2011) concentrated on day trips only and included both travel
expenses and the cost of time, arriving at an average consumer
surplus of 38 USD per trip per person. Extending their estimates to
the whole population of spring birdwatchers, the authors estimated the birdwatching recreational use value of Delaware Bay at
215,000 USD.
All of the above studies provided implications for tourism
management, by indicating the economic recreational values of the
studied sites and thus offering arguments for increased conservation efforts. In particular, Navrud and Mungatana (1994) suggested
raising entrance fees for non-residents to capture a larger share of
their consumer surplus. These funds should be used to maintain the
LNNP as an attractive site for amingoes. Grlk and Rehber (2008)
suggested using the results of their study to help to solve conicts
among local stakeholders, some of whom opposed conservation
because of the lack of economic benets. These benets could be
created, had these stakeholders been compensated by the visitors.
Clark (1987) conrmed the social benets related to protecting the
swallow roost, thus justifying the investment made by local
stakeholders in developing tourism around it.
The TCM is sometimes used to describe the socio-economic
features of the participants of birdwatching-related events, such
as in the case of the Grand Isle Migratory Bird Celebration in Louisiana, US (Isaacs & Chi, 2005). Apart from the TCM studies that
focused on birds in general or specic bird species, others referred
to sites that not only are important for the protection of birds but
also are used for other recreational purposes. These include TCM
studies of the value of Cley Marshes in Norfolk (Klein & Bateman,
1998), the Montgomery and Lancaster Canals (Willis & Garrod,
1990) in the UK, and the Apalachicola River region in Florida, US
(Shrestha, Stein, & Clark, 2007). Finally, some contingent valuation
studies also attempt to estimate the value of a given locality to
tourists as opposed to valuing a particular species (e.g., Amiry,
Yacob, Radam, Samdin & Shuib, 2009; Hvenegaard et al., 1989).
In this paper, we present the results of a single-site travel cost
model using data from an on-site sample of recreational birdwatchers visiting Zywkowo, the best known stork village in
Poland. Using a negative-binomial count-data travel cost model, we
pay particular attention to potential biases introduced by on-site
sampling e endogenous stratication (oversampling frequent visitors) and truncation (only observing visitors making at least one
trip during the season). To the best of our knowledge, this study is
the rst of this type for a stork village and the rst that estimates
the economic value of birds in Poland. The methods that we present
can be used in many applications to offer important tourismrelevant conclusions. Finally, estimating the economic value of
white storks may be crucial for discussing effective protection of
the species in the context of the more general concept of ecosystem
services.
2. Methods
As indicated above, some valuation techniques applied to estimate the social benets of nature are based on stated preferences
(Bateman et al., 2004; Bateman, Willis & Arrow, 2002; Hensher,
Rose & Greene, 2005; Mitchell and Carson, 1989) and others on
preferences revealed in a market (Freeman, 2003). Among the
latter, the TCM is by far the most frequently used technique to estimate recreational use value. This method has been in use since
1947, when Harold Hotelling, in his famous letter to the Director of
the National Parks Service, proposed it as a way of estimating the
benets that national parks provide to society (Hotelling, 1947).
Hotelling was the rst to make a connection between the frequency

M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

of visits from a given zone and the average cost of the visit
depending on how far the zone was from the park, and briey
described how consumer surplus could be derived from these observations. This idea was later applied by Clawson (1959) and
Clawson and Knetsch (1966) in the so-called Zonal Travel Cost
Model.
With the subsequent development of econometrics, the TCM
was able to capture variations in cost and visitation at the individual level instead of relying on zonal averages, inducing a shift to
the individual travel cost method (Brown & Nawas, 1973). This shift
required that the researcher address the problems of selection and
truncation in the number of trips per user (Bockstael, Hanemann, &
Kling, 1987). The problem was solved with truncated normal distributions or, more conveniently, with count data models (Smith,
1988). Thus, the number of individual visits per period is
regressed on the cost of the visit and other explanatory covariables. Then, the average individual consumer surplus can be
estimated (Creel & Loomis, 1990).
2.1. Econometric model
The individual travel cost method treats trips to a site as the
quantity demanded, while the cost of the trip is treated as the price.
These assumptions result in a demand function of the following
form:

rn f pn ; psn ; zn ;

(1)

where rn is the number of trips taken by person n to a given site

during the season, pn is the cost of reaching the site (which usually
includes the cost of travel and opportunity cost of time, i.e. the
value of other things a respondent could have done during the time
he spend travelling), psn represents a vector of travel costs to substitute sites, and zn is a vector of individual characteristics that are
believed to inuence the number of trips an individual takes.
In this setting, the seasonal consumer surplus associated with
accessing the site by an individual n is represented by:
pn

f pn ; psn ; zn dpn ;

CSn

(2)

p0n

where p0n is the current trip cost to the site and pn is the cost level at
which the number of trips goes to zero, also called individual ns
choke price.
A standard practice is to derive single-site recreation demand
functions using count data models. A theoretical basis for the use of
count data to model recreational demand is presented in
Hellerstein and Mendelsohn (1993).
The two most frequently used count models are Poisson and
Negative Binomial. These models are exible enough to handle
truncation, a large number of zero trips in the data, and preference
heterogeneity. In the case of a Poisson model, the probability of
making y trips to the site is given by:

PrY y

emn my
;
y!

y 0; 1; 2.;

(3)

where mn is the expected number of trips taken by respondent n.

This model can be extended to a regression framework by parameterizing the relationship between mn and a set of regressors x. An
exponential mean parameterization is commonly used:
mn exp(b0 x), where x corresponds to the variables pn, psn , and zn
dened previously. The vector of parameters (b) is estimated using
the maximum likelihood technique, in which each persons

355

probability of taking the observed number of trips is used as an

entry in the likelihood function.
The Poisson model was our initial model. Its main advantage is
its simplicity, however, it requires a property known as equidispersion e the rst two moments of a distribution are equal, i.e.,
E(Y) m V(Y).
Because the assumption of equidispersion could not be justied
for our data, we turned to a Negative Binomial model that relaxes
this constraint. The Negative Binomial and Poisson models are
closely related. On any choice occasion, the decision of whether to
take a trip can be modelled with a binomial distribution. As the
number of choices increases, the distribution asymptotically converges to a Poisson distribution. However, when overdispersion is
present, i.e., V (Y) > E (Y), the parameter estimates are consistent
but the standard errors are no longer valid.
The Negative Binomial method allows for the relaxation of the
equidispersion assumption, but it does not automatically account
for the bias introduced by on-site sampling. Because of on-site
sampling, the sample is endogenously stratied. This is because
frequent visitors are more likely to be sampled, hence the likelihood of sampling observations is dependent on a choice made by
the subject being studied (dependent variable). The problem of
choice-based sampling was rst addressed for the Poisson model
by Shaw (1988). Englin and Shonkwiler (1995) extended their
analysis with an application of the truncated and endogenously
stratied negative binomial model.
In this paper, we use a model proposed by Englin and
Shonkwiler (1995) that accommodates three features of on-site
samples concerning count data: overdispersion, truncation at
zero, and endogenous stratication due to oversampling of
frequent users of the site. The model takes the following form:

G xi a1  xi xi 1 
 y a1

 a li
;
1 ali i
Prxi jxi > 0 xi
Gxi 1G a1
xi 1; 2; .;
(4)
where G represents the gamma function, the parameter a determines the degree of dispersion, and the expected number of
0
trips taken by visitor n is given by Exn ln expb xn . A special
case of the negative binomial model includes the Poisson model
(a 0).
Table 1
Summary statistics of the explanatory variables.
Variable

Mean

Std. dev.

Min

Max

Visits in the last 12 months

Language e Polish
Language e English
Language e German
Distance travelled (one way)
Male
Age
University
Household income < 2500 PLN
Household income 2501e4499 PLN
Household income > 4500 PLN
Income not reported
Bird-watching e never
Bird-watching e sometimes
Bird-watching e frequent
Bird species recognized 0e20
Bird species recognized 21e50
Bird species recognized > 51

1.307
0.669
0.038
0.144
108.898
0.398
40.684
0.435
0.398
0.133
0.263
0.189
0.309
0.599
0.094
0.608
0.347
0.077

2.309
0.394
0.181
0.379
153.268
0.465
14.757
0.478
0.477
0.336
0.438
0.391
0.466
0.503
0.297
0.513
0.494
0.276

1
0
0
0
0
0
15
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

50
1
1
1
1000a
1
82
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

a
Respondents reporting having travelled distances greater than 1000 km were
considered outliers and removed from the sample.

356

M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

Fig. 1. Location of Zywkowo.

Finally, in most applications, a is assumed to be the same for all

respondents. This assumption is unrealistic, as it is equivalent to
assuming homogeneous respondent preferences. Instead, we use a
more exible approach that allows the overdispersion parameter to
be a function of visitor characteristics, which allows us to introduce
preference heterogeneity in the model (c.f. Nicolau & Ms, 2006).
The expected number of trips taken by visitor n is given by: ln
0
expbTC TCn bz Zn that serves as our travel cost recreation demand function. The parameter TCn represents individual ns cost of
reaching the site, and Zn is a vector of individual-specic characteristics that are assumed to inuence the number of trips an individual takes. As the majority of visitors did not specify any other
site as a good substitute for the stork village, a vector of trip cost
substitute sites was not included in the recreation demand
function.
Whether and how to incorporate the value of travel time in the
TCM studies were discussed ever since the earliest applications of
this method (e.g. Clawson & Knetsch, 1966; Johnson, 1966). Estimating the value of time (or, in most cases, rather the opportunity
cost of time) is one of the most frequently discussed problems in
the literature on TCM (e.g. Fletcher et al., 1990; Garrod & Willis,
1999; Hanley & Barbier, 2009). Overall, the literature suggests
two most commonly used approaches to incorporate the value of
time in TCM studies e using a fraction of respondents wage rate,
with 33% being the most broadly accepted level (Englin & Cameron,
1996; Englin & Shonkwiler, 1995; Garrod & Willis, 1999; Hellerstein
& Mendelsohn, 1993) or not incorporating time costs at all (Alberini
& Longo, 2006; Alberini, Zanatta, & Rosato, 2007; Fleming & Cook,
2008; Hanley, Bell, & Alvarez-Farizo, 2003). In our analysis we
present the results for both these approaches e the trip cost was
dened in two variants, with and without the cost of time; in both
cases a round trip was assumed.
The average cost per kilometr was assumed to be 0.45 PLN1,2;
when calculating cost per person, we took the size of the travelling
party into account. The value of time depended on a visitors origin

1 PLN z 0.25 EUR z 0.33 USD.

We used the ofcial average operating cost according to the Polish Automobile
Association. This rate is commonly used for reimbursing employees who use private
vehicles for ofcial business.

and was assumed to be 8 PLN/h for Polish visitors and 16 PLN/h for
foreigners (in both cases the value of time was assumed to be equal
to 1/3 of the average hourly wage rate, which is a common practice
in TCM studies; Cesario, 1976). The average vehicle speed was
assumed to be 60 km/h, and the mean distance travelled was
109 km (one way).
Finally, the vector Zn included respondent characteristics that
may be associated with his or her interest in birdwatching: the
number of bird species that a person could recognize, reporting
being a frequent birdwatcher, and socio-economic characteristics
including age, income, gender, and education. The summary statistics of the variables used in the analysis are presented in Table 1.
2.2. Study site
Zywkowo lays in the north-east of Poland (Fig. 1), on the periphery of one of the most attractive parts of the country to tourists,
the Masurian Lake District, and is thus sometimes included into a
visit to this area. However, it is not located near any major tourist
attraction and is relatively far from larger cities (the closest cities
are: Olsztyn with 175,000 inhabitants, 80 km away; Elblag e
125,000 inhabitants, 100 km away; and Gdansk e 450,000 inhabitants, 160 km away).
Although Zywkowo is the best known stork village in Poland, it
attracts only approximately 2000e5000 tourists annually, many of
who come from abroad. The village has approximately 20e40
white stork nests and only approximately 10 households (Fig. 2). To
reach Zywkowo, one has to come with the intention to watch
storks, as there are no other attractions in the village. The village
has a stork-watching tower, a gift shop, and an exhibit that is used
for educational purposes. Zywkowo can be reached by public
transportation, although this is rather complicated and most people come by car (84% in our sample) or as part of an organized tour
(13%), with some coming by bicycle (1%). Fig. 3 presents the time
distribution of visits to Zywkowo in 2011 and Fig. 4 presents frequency of trips depending on distance travelled (one way).
2.3. Survey and data

Tourists visiting Zywkowo were surveyed on site between April

and September of 2011, i.e., from when the storks returned from

M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

Fig. 2. A tourist watching storks in Zywkowo.

their spring migration to when they left for autumn migration.

Throughout the whole survey period questionnaires were available
to tourists visiting an exhibition room which can be considered a
central point of touristic activity in the village. Questionnaires were
placed in a central place of a room, next to a big and highly visible
box where the lled in questionnaires were supposed to be
deposited. In addition, the local employees, assisted by interviewers who stayed in the village throughout most of the season,
prompted the visitors to take part in the study and conducted some
of the surveys face-to-face.
In 2011, 2850 tourists visited Zywkowo, of whom 583 agreed to
complete the questionnaire, i.e. 20% of all visitors. Thus, our surveyed fraction of visitor population was much larger than in the
case of previous studies using TCM to estimate the value of bird
sites (see Section 1.2).
Unfortunately, the visitor statistics available in Zywkowo do not
provide detailed information on the characteristics of visits (e.g.,
the length of stay) nor on the socio-economic characteristics of
visitors. As in other similar studies (e.g. Navrud & Mungatana,
1994), we have no denite check on how representative our sample is, however, we have taken steps to increase the representativeness of the sample by randomly selecting respondents,
surveying the relatively large share of visitors, and performing the
interviews throughout the entire season.
In the questionnaire, we asked about the main reasons for
visiting a given stork village and the perceived importance of storks
on a 0 to 10 scale where 10 was storks only and 1 was not related

Fig. 3. Number of tourists visiting Zywkowo from March through September, 2011.

357

Fig. 4. Frequency of trips depending on distance travelled (one way).

to storks (To what extent is your visit linked with the large
numbers of storks in the village?) e the mean response was 9.02. In
addition, in order to control for the possibility of multiple itineraries of respondents trips, we asked where the tourists came from,
distinguishing between their most recent stop (if they visited more
than one place during their trips) and their place of residence.3 We
also asked how long the travel took and what means of transportation were used. We then asked about the time spent in the
stork village, including e separately e the time spent watching
storks and stork-related attractions. Further questions referred to
previous visits to the stork village and the number of people travelling in a party. Finally, respondents were asked socio-economic
questions, providing information about their age, gender, income,
level of education, and basic birdwatching preferences. Questionnaires were available in Polish, German and English.

3. Results
The estimation results of the two models are shown in Table 2 e
one assuming the opportunity cost of time to be zero (Model 1) and
the other assuming the opportunity cost of time to be one-third of
an hourly wage (Model 2). As expected, the coefcient of trip cost
was negative and statistically signicant in both models. The two
birdwatching intensity variables, i.e., the number of species a person could recognize and how frequently the person observes birds,
had positive and signicant coefcients. Income, age and whether a
person has a university degree are good predictors in our recreation
demand models. Our estimates suggest that ceteris paribus the
older a person is and the higher income the person has the more
visits he or she makes. Furthermore, males and individuals with
university degrees ceteris paribus make more visits. However,
because of the distance, visitors from Germany and other foreigners
make ceteris paribus fewer visits than birdwatchers from Poland.
Our parameter estimates also suggest that our data have substantial
over-dispersion that could be explained by the dummies for university degree and age.
In Table 3, we report welfare estimates along with a sensitivity
analysis on the opportunity cost of time. Using zero cost of time
instead of 1/3 of wage resulted in welfare estimates (consumer

3
In our analysis, only the distance and time from their last place visited was
used.

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M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

Table 2
Estimation results of the individual travel cost models.
Variable

Model 1 (without cost of time)

Coefcient

Cost
Birdwatching e sometimes
Birdwatching e frequent
Bird species recognized 21e50
Bird species recognized > 51
Male
University
Age
Household income 2501e4499 PLN
Household income > 4500 PLN
Income not reported
Language e German
Language e English
Constant
Covariates of a
Age
University
Constant
Model characteristics
Log-likelihood
Observations

Model 2 (with cost of time)

Asympt. t-stat

Coefcient

Asympt. t-stat

0.005
0.549
1.554
0.494
0.593
1.145
0.394
0.171
0.555
2.933
0.469
1.363
1.238
17.645

2.69
2.76
5.66
2.81
2.19
7.13
2.25
2.94
2.46
2.25
1.97
4.04
1.94
3.88

0.003
0.596
1.691
0.537
0.639
1.169
0.365
0.174
0.537
2.877
0.431
1.394
1.230
15.731

3.89
2.97
6.13
3.05
2.35
7.27
2.08
2.91
2.38
2.19
1.81
4.11
1.93
3.36

0.208
3.054
16.141

3.54
2.26
3.52

0.208
3.054
16.141

3.53
2.28
3.49

520.32
583

Table 3
Welfare estimates associated with visiting the stork village (consumer surplus per
person per trip) [PLN].
Model 1 (without cost of time)

Model 2 (with cost of time)

Mean

Std. dev.

95% conf. int.

Mean

Std. dev.

95% conf. int.

195.41

67.58

60.39e328.14

396.23

109.49

175.14e608.32

surplus associated with average respondents visits) that are 51%

lower.
4. Conclusions and implications for tourism management
The results of our study show that there are people who are
willing to travel long distances to visit a stork village. The mean
consumer surplus per visit was estimated to be nearly 200 PLN
(60 USD), or nearly 400 PLN (120 USD) when the opportunity cost
of travel time was included. These results seem relatively high and
illustrate the value some consumers derive from watching storks in
a stork village. The total annual social benet e the annual recreational use value generated by Zywkowo e was therefore calculated to be 570,000e1,160,000 PLN (170,000e345,000 USD). These
results support tourism management especially with regard to
public awareness, information, and education.
The above values are not directly related to what the local human communities living in stork villages can earn, as opposed to
the approach employed, for example, by the RSPB that calculates
the tourists contributions to local economies (Molloy et al., 2011;
RSPB, 2010). However, the value we estimated can translate into
direct benets for local economies in at least two ways:
1. when local authorities or potential donors realize the importance of social benets provided by storks in stork villages and,
as a result, make decisions that assist local residents in coping
with the storks presence (e.g., through incentives to maintain
foraging grounds for storks or to improve roof structures); and
2. when local residents and managers realize the potential that
developing tourist infrastructure might bring and make or increase their own investments in tourist infrastructure or if they
introduce an entrance fee to capture part of the estimated
consumer surplus.

512.14
583

In both cases, the estimates can help to ensure that storks

continue to deliver the public benets that they have delivered thus
far.
Our study focused on the recreational value specically related
to tourism which is much smaller than the total economic value of a
stork village. Nonetheless, it may be used as a lower bound and is
based on conservative, i.e., less controversial, assumptions. The
recreational value of a stork village might further increase had its
managers catered more broadly for the needs of the tourists. Apart
from creating accommodation and eating opportunities, these
could include guided tours, horse riding, and renting binoculars or
bicycles. Indeed, in the absence of these amenities, the recreational
value we have estimated can very clearly be attributed to the white
stork nesting colony. Broader information on the stork village
(promotion) would also help to bring more people to this place,
ensure that this additional tourist infrastructure is more efciently
used. So far, our study conrms that the managers of Zywkowo are
not capitalizing on the tourism opportunities which this site offers,
similar to the managers of many other natural areas (Booth et al.,
2011).
TCM estimates are often used as a basis for cost-benet analyses
(e.g., Becker et al., 2010; Clark, 1987; Grlk & Rehber, 2008). In our
case, comparing the costs of creating and maintaining stork villages
to the benets provided to visitors would offer further interesting
and tourism management-relevant conclusions. In some countries,
stork villages have been created articially (e.g., Zegveld in the
Netherlands) to become tourist attractions; however, in Poland
there are other stork colonies that may be relatively easily marketed as stork villages to attract tourists. In these cases, the costs of
creating a stork village are primarily the costs of abandoning
intensive agricultural practices and preventing secondary succession in the surrounding area. Additionally, the costs of marketing
the village as a tourist attraction and creating tourist infrastructure
need to be considered.
Valuation studies may also provide useful inputs to damage
assessments. Zywkowo is currently experiencing problems related
to the decay of traditional extensive agriculture. Reducing the villages attractiveness to storks will also make it less attractive to
tourists, diminishing the non-market benets it now generates. Our
analysis provides a new argument for the discussion on the local
and country-level importance of this and similar sites. By being able

M. Czajkowski et al. / Tourism Management 40 (2014) 352e360

to estimate the monetary benets associated with the opportunity

to see storks in their natural environment, we provide a clear
message to policy makers. Our study is also a demonstration of how
applying state-of-the-art valuation techniques can inform tourism
managers and enable them to make rational choices.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded within the Polish National Science
Centre grant N N112 292339. In addition, the authors gratefully
acknowledge the support of the Polish Ministry of Science and
Higher Education and the Foundation for Polish Science.
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Mikoaj Czajkowski (miq@wne.uw.edu.pl) is an assistant

professor at the University of Warsaw, Department of Economic Sciences, and a researcher at the Warsaw Ecological
Economics Center. His research interests include environmental and resource economics and microeconometrics, in
particular quantitative methods of modelling consumers
preferences based on their discrete choices. See http://
www.en.woee.pl/team/mikolaj-czajkowski for an overview
of his academic work.

Marek Giergiczny (mgiergiczny@wne.uw.edu.pl) is an

assistant professor at the University of Warsaw, Department of Economic Sciences, and a researcher at the Warsaw Ecological Economics Center. His research interests
include environmental and resource economics and
discrete choice models. See http://www.en.woee.pl/team/
marek-giergiczny for an overview of his academic work.

Jakub Kronenberg, PhD e lecturer in the Department of

International Economics at the University of Lodz, Poland.
His research interests focus on economyeenvironment
interactions, in particular from the ecological economics
perspective. His book Ecological economics and industrial
ecology was published by Routledge in 2007. He gained
international research experience while working in France,
Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the Kyrgyz Republic.
Since 2009 he is member of the board of the Sendzimir
Foundation that promotes sustainable development in
Poland. While not working, he may be birdwatching or
travelling. Personal website: www.economics-ofsustainability.com/jk

Piotr Tryjanowski (piotr.tryjanowski@gmail.com) is a


professor and director of the Institute of Zoology at Poznan
University of Life Sciences. His research interests include
ecology of vertebrates, with a particular interest in the
effects of climate and environmental changes on birds and
mammals. He has studied the population of white stork in
Poland for over 25 years. See http://www.zoologia.up.
poznan.pl/pl/prof-dr-hab-piotr-tryjanowski-dyrektorinstytutu for an overview of his academic work.