| Summary: | Research on the economic valuation of temples or religious heritage is scarce and, at the same time, extremely necessary, given the growing importance of religious tourism in certain territories with significant static competitive advantages that can be economically exploited. This article quantifies the economic value of the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Las Lajas, Colombia, declared of national cultural interest by the Ministry of Culture in 2006, by adapting and applying travel cost and contingent valuation methods, as well as Poisson, logit, and probit regression models to estimate the probabilities of visiting the temple and the willingness to pay of religious consumers (WTP). The probability of visiting the Sanctuary is explained by the WTP and the visitor's postgraduate education and, in turn, the WTP is determined by the final consumption expenditure, the number of visits made and the salaried status of the tourist. The logit and probit regressions predict a highly significant payment probability of 97.5%.
|
|---|
