Economic benefits of sport fishing in Los Cabos, Mexico: Is the relative abundance a determinant?

Los Cabos is the main tourism destination in Baja California Sur with almost 1.19million visitors in 2009. Its early development is linked to sport fishing practice since 1960, mainly for two reasons. The first one refers to the high likelihood of catching. The second is related to the abundance of sport fishing species (blue, striped and black marlin; sailfish, dolphin fish, yellowfin tuna, wahoo, roosterfish and jack mackerel), which are present and are highly abundant throughout the year. The study aims to estimate the economic benefits of sport fishing in Los Cabos by applying an economic valuation technique known as travel costs. The study has two basic assumptions; first, travel cost method allows estimating more conservative benefits than the preceded studies for this activity. The second assumption is that the relative abundance of sport fishing species is relevant within the demand model for sport fishing trips. The purpose of valuation is to estimate the willingness to pay for access (WTP) the site and subsequently the economic benefit. Count models, like Poisson, are generally used in travel cost method to estimate the WTP to access the site. The models incorporate arguments like cost of the fishing trip, income, other socioeconomic variables and the catch per unit effort (CPUE). CPUE is considered an appropriate index to measure the relative abundance of sport fishing species. Several Poisson models were estimated to calculate the individual WTP, with values from 22.27 to 70.55 dollars. The economic benefits of sport fishing in Los Cabos for the estimated models are between 2.10 and 6.65million dollars. The value of WTP can be used to propose modifications to the access fees, and the collected amount may be oriented to enforce conservation, protection and management actions.