On the relationship between quality, users’ perception and economic valuation in NW Mediterranean beaches

The relationships between two traditional economic valuation methods, Travel Cost Method (TCM) and Hedonic Prices (HPs) are tested in a sun-and-beach tourist-oriented area in the Northwestern Mediterranean coast in order to appraise/value beach integral quality and its attributes. Traditional economic methods do not seem to capture the aggregate quality of beaches, although this study has shown that positive relationships were found between HP and integral beach quality. Instead, these methods are more (positively) related to specific aspects such as Services and Facilities Quality, Natural Conditions Quality (dune system development) and Access and Parking Quality. The results of this study show that these methods do not sufficiently value beach social–ecological resources at the study site. In this paper we also compared users’ economic beach valuation (using TCM and HP) with the expenditure on general maintenance and sediment management by local managers. The results show an important gap between investments made by managers (less than 1 million €/year) and users’ economic valuation (more than 1 million €/day at the peak of the season). These results suggest the feasibility of establishing a beach management tax for beach-related economic activities that could be used to improve the weakest aspects of beach management in the region.