The role of tourists for pastures resilience and agriculture sustainability in the Alps: a multivariate analysis approach

Traditional extensive agriculture is the main factor of landscape management in mountain: a large part of the Alps is modelled by agriculture. According to Soliva et al. (2008), low intensive farming systems generate extensive green areas, such as meadows and pastures. These systems substantially comprise much of the mountain landscape mosaic, the so-called semi-natural environment, reflecting their anthropogenic nature. Interpreted as a multifunctional activity, including landscape modelling and maintenance, agriculture generates the conditions under which mountain pasture landscape is an economic resource potentially exploitable by tourism. Thus, tourism has acquired a central position in the debate on the future of rural, upland and mountain economies across Europe, especially in the light of both the increasing recognition of these services and functions (Lee et al., 2010) and the demand for the natural environment and landscape (Castellani & Sala, 2009). Some studies concerning mountain rural tourist profiles have been developed during the recent years (Bernuès et al. 2015, Devesa et al. 2010, Mazzocchi & Sali, 2016). The innovation of this work is a mixed approach, based on a multivariate analysis using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and a Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) to characterize the profiles of potential tourists of mountain pastures. Among the characteristics of tourists, our model includes their WTP for pastures resilience. Since the analysis outlines the profile of tourists, it may contribute to a marketing project aimed to communicate and advertise the grazing system and landscape, taking advantage of the demand for tourism in the most efficient way. Moreover, useful guidelines for public policies can be drawn based on the results to invest public resources in the aspects of the good best evaluated by tourists. The analysis has been performed with direct interviews to tourists, conducted in some Italian municipalities of the Seriana, Brembana and Scalve Valley, located within the Regional Park of Orobie Bergamasche Alps, in the northern area of the Province of Bergamo, in Lombardy Region. The survey has been realized from July to December 2015, and 429 interviews have been collected. The structure of the questionnaire is based on closed questions to standardize responses and facilitate categorization. In the first part of the questionnaire subjects were asked to express their opinion (on a scale from 1 to 5) concerning the importance of the environment, territory, accessibility and activity of pastures. In the second part of the questionnaire, willingness to pay was made explicit using the double bounded method. The third part of the questionnaire addressed the personal characteristics of the respondents. The methodological approach presents three steps: the WTP assessment, the MCA improvement, and the HCA. In the present study, a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) has been used. To assess WTP, the information was directly elicited from individual i after applying a contingent valuation questionnaire using the dichotomous choice model, generating a dichotomous answer (yi= 0 if the individual answers no and yi= 1 if the answer is yes) to a question about paying a previously determined amount si, which randomly varies across individuals (Lopez, 2012). According to Mazzocchi & Sali (2016), we used a double bounded model to introduce the potential identification of two limits, lower and upper, in which the individual WTP is located. The second step of the methodology involves a multivariate analysis, given the considerable number of categorical compared with quantitative variable. Because MCA transforms categorical variables into continuous variables and enables the characterization of gr