Despite the long history of human use of the ecosystems of the Great Barrier Reef, management decisions have historically been made drawing heavily on ecological and biophysical data more so than socio-economic data. As a result, there is a lack of systematic and purposefully collected centralised socio-economic data. Furthermore, the disparate nature of this data presents challenges for use in decision making. Drawing on existing approaches for understanding values people hold relating to natural systems, we present and test an Ecosystem Service Value Chain conceptual framework as a tool for visualising, organising and prioritising socio-economic data. By representing the stages and processes involved in the delivery of ecosystem services, from the natural marine environment and its ecosystems (ie coral reefs) to the ultimate beneficiaries (government, industry, households, First Nations) the Ecosystem, Service Value Chain approach has two clear strengths. Firstly, it not only enables a way to understand who benefits from what, as well as how the benefit is quantified or qualified, but secondly, provides a systematic approach to understand the quality of data, how this data can (or cannot) be used in decision making as well as existing data gaps.