The worldwide degradation of coral reefs due to local and global threats has, in the past decade, sparked the diffusion of active coral restoration programs which aim at supporting the natural process of recovery. Yet, most coral restoration projects limit monitoring to few ecological factors. The ability of measuring the effectiveness of these projects, including their socio-economic dimensions, could increase their credibility and determine their further expansion through ease access to financial resources. Here, we measured the satisfaction and the relative importance of key characteristics of the reef or “reef attributes” for clients and residents of resorts in the Maldives through Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Results of the fieldwork show that reef users in two resorts were not satisfied about the color, the quantity and the variety of the coral present in the locations. On the same items, importance ratings were very high thus indicating that a gap between satisfaction and importance and possibly highlighting a need for intervention. Some results were also gender-specific: women were much less satisfied than men but more willing to participate to a local coral restoration project.

We recommend that evaluation of coral restoration programs include reef users’ satisfaction to provide a measure of effectiveness and potentially to ensure initial and longer-term support to the initiative.

在过去的十年中，由于局部和全球性威胁而在全世界范围内造成的珊瑚礁退化，引发了旨在支持自然恢复过程的积极的珊瑚恢复计划的扩散。但是，大多数珊瑚修复项目都将监测范围限制在少数生态因素上。衡量这些项目的有效性（包括其社会经济规模）的能力可以提高其可信度，并通过轻松获得财务资源来确定其进一步扩展。在这里，我们通过重要性绩效分析（IPA）来衡量马尔代夫度假村客户和居民对礁石或“礁石属性”关键特征的满意程度和相对重要性。现场调查结果显示，两个度假村的珊瑚礁使用者对颜色不满意，这些位置中存在的珊瑚的数量和种类。在同一项目上，重要性等级很高，因此表明满意度和重要性之间存在差距，并可能强调需要干预。一些结果也因性别而异：妇女比男人满意度低得多，但更愿意参加当地的珊瑚修复项目。

我们建议对珊瑚恢复计划的评估应包括对珊瑚礁使用者的满意度，以提供有效性的衡量标准，并有可能确保对该计划的初步和长期支持。