The effects of visual information on willingness to pay for a recreational site improvement in Chile

This article examines the effect of visual information on people's willingness to pay (WTP) for improvements to the infrastructure and water quality of an urban recreation site. We applied the contingent valuation methodology to two groups of people in the City of Talca, Chile. The control group received written information about improvements to be made to a recreational site, whereas the treated group received written and visual information. We found that people who were shown visual illustrations were willing to give more money to support the project than people who were not shown this additional information. We also found that, depending on respondent characteristics, the confidence interval of WTP was lower for people who were provided with visual illustrations than for those who were not. Additionally, users in the treated group were more likely to pay for improvements to be made and lower protest responses.