Unsustainable marine and coastal tourism

Tourism activities may have major impacts on the marine and coastal environment, the resources they host and the diversity of those resources. Most often, those impacts are due to inappropriate planning, irresponsible behaviour by tourists and operators and/or lack of education and awareness of the impacts by, for example, tourist resorts along the coastal zones. But sometimes decisions for tourism development are based only on the potential economic benefit, in spite of the known potential damage to the environment, as in the case of various coral reef resorts. Coastal erosion often affects many coastal infrastructures that have been built for tourism purposes. However, it is often those very infrastructures that have altered dune-replenishment processes (causing beach erosion), modified local currents by building harbour-like structures (causing, for example, the smothering of superficial corals), and led to eutrophication through inappropriate positioning of the resort sewage systems and the often absent treatment of the water discharged.

While the impact of tourism on coastal resources may already be a serious issue, the degradation of these resources may cause the impoverishment of their diversity, as in the case of mangrove ecosystems adjacent to tourist resorts. This may have significant ecological and economic implications for and displacement of local populations.