Landscape planning and economic valuation of mangrove ecotourism using GIS and Google Earth image

Ecotourism is an alternative for development and management of forest area that is expected to provide sustainable economic, cultural and social benefits to the surrounding community. The central components of ecotourism are the landscape and the people. This study aims to create spatial planning of mangrove ecotourism through the exploration of landscape potential in the form of biophysical element and to evaluate recreational and socioeconomic values of Bakau Mas Ecotourism, in Lubuk Kertang Village, Langkat Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Travel cost method (TCM) was used to evaluate the
economic value of ecotourism. The ecotourism planning activities comprise of the potential inventory, analysis, synthesis, concept planning, and create the design of the site using geographic information system (GIS) and Google Earth Image (GEI). Landscape planning was developed through the spatial distribution
of mangrove forest ecotourism areas. To obtain the socioeconomic values, 51 questionnaires were collected from the visitors. The ecotourism area is provided with 42.20 ha and 11.46 ha of buffer area. The area is equipped with land routes such as trails and boardwalk about 3,628.89 meters and waterways about
1,721.23 meters was the access to interpret the mangrove ecosystem. The economic value of Bakau Mas ecotourism area was IDR 55,002,604.00/year (USD 3,929). These results indicated that the willingness to pay was decreased by increasing the entrance fee. The models estimated that the optimal ticket price was IDR 16,000.00/person (USD 1,14)