Report on market and non - market economic values for environmental services of marine and coastal ecosystems (D5.5)

This Deliverable presents the results of the economic valuation of climate change impacts utilizing the non-market valuation method of Discrete Choice Experiments. The focus is on the priority nine impact chains for the tourism sector that have been assessed and reported in previous stages of SOCLIMPACT project. 

The Discrete Choice Experiment surveys were conducted both at island destinations and at the source countries of the tourists. For the surveys at the island destinations, 2,528 tourists in ten different islands were on-site investigated in 2019 by means of in-person interviews following a structured questionnaire that presented a set of policy proposals for counteracting the expected climate change impacts. The preferences of respondents as elicited with these questionnaires showed that tourists have significant positive values for the policies for climate change action at island destinations, with the most valued policies being those concerned with guaranteeing the availability of water resources, the restoration of marine habitats and the containment of the risks of infectious diseases.

For the Discrete Choice Experiment surveys conducted at the source countries, 6,900 tourists who had travelled or were interested to travel to European Islands were interviewed on-line. The sample was divided between 4,838 subjects interviewed before the COVID-19, and 2,062 after the outbreak became widespread. The results show that the risks of climate change impacts will have significant effects on the destination choices of potential tourists to European island destinations, with the most sensitive effects for those related with the higher risks of infectious diseases, the damage to marine habitats and the forest fires.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic had a downward effect on the value that tourists attach to the problem of climate change on island destinations, although some of the impacts such as the risk of infection disease and forest fires did increase after the pandemic. Thus, the global disease outbreak had made tourists less sensitive to the expected impacts of climate change on island destinations, thereby experiencing a higher demand for tourist services that have been repressed over the pandemic. It can be expected that these effects are temporary and will tail out in the long run once the health crisis is overcome by a tourist market situation similar to the one before the pandemic.