The marine environment as tourism-recreational resource. An economic assesment of the demand

The socio-economic characteristics of the countries facing the Mediterranean sea along with the shared and extremely migratory fish stocks that live and breed in these areas, require a joint and mutually agreed action able to guarantee a future for the fishing industry and safeguard the marine resources. To achieve this, the EU Commission suggested certain specific interventions for the Mediterranean in addition to the common measures established for all the European areas. Thus, amongst the principal stock protection measures, the Commission encouraged the establishment of new protected and safeguarded fishing zones as well as restocking areas. This work is based on these considerations and its aim is to indicate certain reference points regarding the estimation of the total economic value (TEV) to apply to marine protected areas (MPA) in which tourist activities have been allowed and developed. Thus, an investigation was conducted to ascertain the effective importance that the users ascribe to biological protected areas (BPA) and an attempt was made to estimate a possible economic value of the tourist demand for such places as recreational destinations. In particular, the study conducts in-depth research into the possible use values of biological protected areas (BPA) by applying the Travel Cost Method so as to ascribe an economic value to the place in relation to the tourist-recreational facilities provided. The assessment model was applied to a specific research area, of artificial origin, situated offshore from the coast of Ravenna.