Assessment of recreational cultural service value based on social media data and TCIA

Introduction Quantitative assessment of recreational cultural ecosystem service value is of great significance for wetland conservation and sustainable management. However, traditional questionnaire-based approaches often face limitations in timeliness, cost, and visitor-origin information acquisition under data-constrained conditions. This study assessed the recreational cultural ecosystem service value of the Panjin Red Beach Wetland. Methods Social media review data were collected from the Ctrip, Qunar, and Douyin platforms between September 2024 and August 2025 using Python-based web scraping techniques. Information on visitor IP locations, ratings, and textual descriptions was extracted, and visitor origins were simulated to estimate travel costs and consumer surplus within a Travel Cost Interval Analysis (TCIA) framework. SnowNLP was further used to conduct sentiment analysis of visitor reviews and to examine the relationship between travel costs and visitor sentiment scores. Results Under the representative assumption of 850,000 visits, the total recreational cultural ecosystem service value of the Panjin Red Beach Wetland in 2024 was approximately 983 million CNY, with a per capita value of 1,156.11 CNY. When the annual visitor volume was summarized as 770,000–880,000 visits, the estimated total value ranged from approximately 890 million to 1,017 million CNY. Visitor sentiment was predominantly positive overall, and a significant positive correlation was found between travel costs and the average sentiment scores across provinces. Discussion The integration of social media data with TCIA is a feasible approach for estimating recreational cultural ecosystem service value under data-constrained conditions. This approach can provide a low-cost and operational reference for the valuation and management of cultural ecosystem services in coastal wetlands.