THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BOTANICAL GARDENS - A RECREATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Historically, the importance of botanic gardens was based on their status as centres for the study and understanding of plants, and on their usefulness to the developing science of medicine. Recently, however, these traditional uses of botanic gardens have diminished, and, with maintenance costs often exceeding revenues, their continued existence is under question. Using data on visitors to four very different botanic gardens, this study adopts a travel-cost methodology to estimate the economic benefits which they provide in their role as recreational facilities. These benefits are then aggregated and found to fall far short of the total grant-in-aid made to each garden, though it is noted that there are other considerations which need to be taken into account before any firm conclusions can be drawn about the gardens' continued economic viability.