This paper presents arguments for the superiority of the public good demand curve over that of private goods in the scope of heritage valuation, and initially applies the zonal travel cost method (ZTCM) in evaluating Hoi An, a World Heritage town in Central Vietnam, to look for evidence of such superiority. | VNU Journal of Science Economics and Business Vol. 35 No. 3 2019 11-25 Original Article Valuing Heritage as a Public Good Initial Application to Zonal Travel Cost Method in Hoi An Vietnam Bui Dai Dung Nguyen An Thinh Nguyen Thi Vinh Ha Nguyen Thi Hoa Hanh VNU University of Economics and Business 144 Xuan Thuy Str. Cau Giay Dist. Hanoi Vietnam Received 5 August 2019 Revised 24 September 2019 Accepted 24 September 2019 Abstract A literature overview shows that almost all of the valuation researches for heritage have built demand curves as for private goods. We argue that heritage is a high-end purity public good. A heritage valuation research would yield more accurate results if the demand curve could be built as that of a public good. This paper presents arguments for the superiority of the public good demand curve over that of private goods in the scope of heritage valuation and initially applies the Zonal Travel Cost Method ZTCM in evaluating Hoi An a World Heritage town in Central Vietnam to look for evidence of such superiority. Evidence shows that i The relationship between visits and travel cost could be represented more accurately by the public good s demand curve rather than the private good s curve ii To build the demand curve for such a World Heritage site tourists are inhomogeneous it requires an additional technique to minimize potential distortions in which the purchasing power parity ratio PPP ratio is used to adjust inconsistencies in actual traveling costs iii The value of Hoi An which is valued at 4 255 724 958 USD in accordance with its public good s demand curve shows that it is higher than the value computed according to the private goods demand curve. Keywords Heritage valuation valuation methods heritage as a public good demand curves of heritage as a public good ZTCM. ____ Corresponding author. E-mail address dungbd@ https 2588-1108 11 VNU Journal of Science Economics and Business Vol. 35 No. 3
