Beaches are icons of summer tourism and a strong motivating factor for the arrival of tourists in the sun and sea tourism destinations. Spending time on the beach is one of the most popular forms of tourism leisure worldwide. Beaches serve both as recreational areas of coastal cities, and valuable ecosystems that provide natural and protective functions. The Croatian coast is relatively rich in this valuable tourism resource, but the management of beaches as a tourist product has not reached significant progress. This dissertation aims to contribute to the sustainable management of beaches as a tourism product and recognises the possibility of involving all stakeholders in this process by studying socio-demographic factors, preferences, satisfaction, and future behavioural intentions of beach visitors. This knowledge can make an important contribution to the beach management process because it can be used to make more informed management decisions. Which characteristics of a particular beach need to be improved, what facilities should be introduced or discontinued, beach managers can find out through social science research methods that can encourage participation of all stakeholders, increase visitor satisfaction and destination competitiveness, and thus lay the groundwork for more sustainable development of beaches as tourism products. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to develop a cognitive-affective-conative model of beach visitor satisfaction. This dissertation developed, validated, and tested an empirical model of beach visitor satisfaction by combining the sustainable development framework, international coastal zone management protocols, and national legislation with theories of satisfaction, quality, and consumer behaviour. The empirical model includes measures of beach visitor satisfaction levels with natural beach features, beach facilities, overall beach experience, emotional experience and their future behavioural intention.