Valuing and mapping cultural ecosystem services in coastal areas: an integrated approach applied to recreational seascape tourism in Greece

Coastal ecosystems provide essential cultural ecosystem services that underpin both societal well-being and economic prosperity; however, important gaps remain in capturing both their economic value and spatial distribution. This study proposes an integrated approach for quantifying and mapping the use and non-use economic values of cultural ecosystem services, with recreational seascape tourism in Greece as a case study. The approach combines domestic tourism expenditures from residents’ day-trip recreation and inbound tourism expenditures from international visitors. It also includes residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for preserving beach quality, capturing both use and non-use values that are often overlooked in conventional assessments. High-resolution spatial valuation is achieved through crowdsourced visitation data from Flickr, covering approximately 2,100 beaches nationwide. Findings indicate annual economic contributions of €10.4 billion from domestic and €9.9 billion from inbound tourism, highlighting the sector’s substantial role in the national economy. Residents’ aggregate WTP to maintain coastal quality is estimated at €497 million annually (€57 per individual). Santorini island, a globally recognized tourism destination, emerges as a key economic hotspot. Finally, by linking valuation with spatial mapping, this approach offers a replicable framework to support evidence-based coastal tourism planning, inform conservation financing and help balance economic development with sustainability.