The Economic Evaluation of Cultural Ecosystem Services: The Case of Recreational Activities on the “Via degli Dei Pilgrim Route” (Italy)

Recreation, aesthetic appreciation, identity, and spiritual values are among the cultural ecosystem services (CES) produced by long-distance historic and pilgrimage trails. However, it is still difficult to convert these experiential benefits into quantifiable economic flows. This study collected 560 valid responses from an in-field survey conducted along the Via degli Dei (Bologna–Florence). Robust visitor clusters were created using Gower dissimilarities, Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM), silhouette diagnostics, and Factor Analysis for Mixed Data (FAMD). Each cluster was then profiled according to seasonal patterns, information channels, individual-level, per-category expenditures (accommodation, food, transport, services, and equipment), as well as motivations. Four segments are identified—Student Campers (low-budget, peak-summer), Working-Age Male B&B Hikers (short stays, B&B), Young Women on Mixed Lodging (mixed accommodation), and Midlife Comfort-Seekers (higher spend, shoulder-season)—underpinning our spending, seasonality, and managerial implications. Student Campers had the lowest absolute expenditures, while Midlife Comfort-Seekers had the highest (median lodging €180; food €175). The study offers practical levers for route governance (targeted communications, low-impact lodging strategies, shoulder-season promotion) to improve local value capture while reducing environmental pressure by connecting typologies to monetary CES flows. The findings provide a reproducible model for implementing recreational CES on historical-cultural tours.