The Mediterranean region is home to some of the world's most visited coastlines, yet systematic monitoring of coastal and maritime tourism has long remained fragmented across national borders. The Research & Monitoring Centre for Coastal & Maritime Tourism in the Eastern Mediterranean addresses this gap by establishing a unified, evidence-based framework for measuring sustainable tourism development.
Funded through the Greek Recovery and Resilience Fund and the NextGenerationEU programme, the Centre operates under the coordination of the Hellenic Ministry of Tourism. Its primary mission is to collect, analyse and disseminate data on coastal tourism flows, maritime activity, and sustainability indicators across partner countries in the Mediterranean basin.
The Centre's methodological framework draws on internationally recognised standards, including the UN World Tourism Organization's Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST) and the European Commission's European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS). This alignment ensures that data produced by the Centre is comparable at both regional and international level.
With a growing network of partner countries spanning the Eastern Mediterranean, the Centre represents a significant step toward coordinated, cross-border tourism governance — providing policymakers, researchers and industry stakeholders with the tools they need to make informed, data-driven decisions.