Mapping the global value and distribution of coral reef tourism

By M. Spalding, L. Burke, Spencer A. Wood, Joscelyne E. Ashpole, J. Hutchison, P. Ermgassen. 2017

598 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Global coral reef related tourism is one of the most significant examples of nature-based tourism from a single ecosystem. Coral reefs attract foreign and domestic visitors and generate revenues, including foreign exchange earnings, in over 100 countries and territories. Understanding the full value of coral reefs to tourism, and the spatial distribution of these values, provides an important incentive for sustainable reef management. In the current work, global data from multiple sources, including social media and crowd-sourced datasets, were used to estimate and map two distinct components of reef value. The first component is local “reef-adjacent” value, an overarching term used to capture a range of indirect benefits from coral reefs, including provision of sandy beaches, sheltered water, food, and attractive views. The second component is “on-reef” value, directly associated with in-water activities such diving and snorkelling. Tourism values were estimated as a proportion of the total visits and spending by coastal tourists within 30 km of reefs (excluding urban areas). Reef-adjacent values were set as a fixed proportion of 10% of this expenditure. On-reef values were based on the relative abundance of dive-shops and underwater photos in different countries and territories. Maps of value assigned to specific coral reef locations show considerable spatial variability across distances of just a few kilometres. Some 30% of the world's reefs are of value in the tourism sector, with a total value estimated at nearly US$36 billion, or over 9% of all coastal tourism value in the world's coral reef countries.

Subfields: Ecology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/04be71ea5a37c00ae393cb000a7b51097a717d1f

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In Ecology

In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Nicholas A. J. Graham

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Coral reef ecosystem services in the Anthropocene (2019, background): “Many of these service groups are inter‐related; for example, the presence of white sands generated by reef processes is closely linked to reef tourism (Spalding et al., 2017).”
Ecosystem services approach for community-based ecotourism: towards an equitable and sustainable blue economy (2020, background): “A recent study estimated that coral reef ecosystems alone represent US$19 billion a year in economic value through diving, snorkeling and other on-reef activities, and an additional US$16 billion a year through reef-adjacent tourism, such as seafood and beach-related travel (Spalding et al., 2017).”
A global map of human pressures on tropical coral reefs (2021, background): “Similarly, well-managed coral reef tourism can maintain an estimated US$36 Billion per year global value of coral reef tourism (Spalding et al., 2017).”