Estimation of the Climatic Change Impact to Beach Tourism Using Joined Vulnerability Analysis and Econometric Modeling

The majority of the touristic activities, especially in the Mediterranean countries, are concentrated around coastal areas, making coastal erosion, among others, a significant threat to coastal economies that depend heavily on revenue from tourism. In this paper a methodology for the estimation of the economic impact of beach erosion to tourism, is been described. Input about the conceptualization, design and implementation of the method is provided. The method focuses on the identification of the vulnerability of the coast to sea level rise and associated erosion, in terms of expected land loss and economic activity in two scales. The economic value of the beach is estimated through a hedonic pricing econometric model, relating Beach Value with environmental social and economic attributes, which relationships can be better understood when distributed and analysed along the geographical space. As case study area Crete Island was selected, while for the small scale the high vulnerable beach of the city of Rethymnon, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Crete Isl, is presented. In the small scale vulnerability analysis, the sectors of the beach which are most vulnerable were identified, while the average revenue losses was found to be in the order of 18€/m2/day.