The comparison of economic value of recreational assets of most popular Polish national parks with the travel cost method

There are 23 national parks in Poland which are very valuable in terms of rare flora and fauna. Their terrain is particularly valuable in nature, but their value is difficult to assess using monetary measures. Out of the most popular Polish National parks, we decided to compare the value of recreational assets of two mountain parks: Tatra National Park (TPN) and Giant Mountains (Karkonosze) National Park (KPN). Due to many similarities in their richness and uniqueness of natural, cultural, historical and landscape values, we formulated the following hypothesis `The economic values of recreational assets per km2 for the TPN and the KPN are similar' - and the truth of this hypothesis is the aim of the work. Material & Methods: To evaluate the examined national parks, we used the individual travel cost method. Then we compared values of TPN and KPN. Results: Travel Cost Method value of the discussed parks amounted to almost 28 billion PLN (USD 7.7 billion) for TPN but for KPN it was only PLN 6.6 billion (USD 1.8 billion). However, the economic values of recreational assets per sq. km (PLN/USD) were similar: for TPN 132 million PLN (36.3 million USD) and 111.5 million PLN (30.7 million USD) for KPN. The annual stream of benefits amounted to almost PLN 420 million (USD 115.6 million) for the TPN and PLN 99.5 million (USD 27.4 million) for the KPN. Moreover, TPN's annual stream of benefits almost doubled since M. Giergiczny's valuation in 2001 (PLN 204.3 million / $ 56.24 million at 2016 prices). Conclusions: We verified positively hypothesis `The economic values of recreational assets per km2 for the TPN and the KPN are similar'. In the future a valuation and comparative analysis of all Polish national parks is planned.