Impact statement

Coastal tourism is often seen as an important part of an economic development strategy. However, most highly cited papers suggest that economic benefits are unequally distributed between tourism investors and resident communities. The highly cited papers also often reflected negative local environmental and social impacts. Furthermore, some global sector reviews describe the tourism enterprise as a guise for property development and investment speculation, without a long-term commitment to local peoples or place. The changing nature of the global tourism enterprise has implications for the way that tourism is examined (historically focused on local impacts from specific tourism operations) and for how tourism is considered within the context of integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development.

Results and discussion

Sentiment analysis focused on the impacts of tourism on social, economic or environmental conditions. As only three of the 44 papers referred to cultural impacts (Saveriades, Reference Saveriades2000; Almeida-García et al., Reference Almeida-García, Peláez-Fernández, Balbuena-Vazquez and Cortés-Macias2016; Cuadrado-Ciuraneta et al., Reference Cuadrado-Ciuraneta, Durà-Guimerà and Salvati2017; Grilli et al., Reference Grilli, Tyllianakis, Luisetti, Ferrini and Turner2021) and often combined social and cultural factors in their discussion, these papers were included in the ‘social’ category for analysis. Negative sentiment was present in 84% of papers, compared to 52% identifying a positive impact of tourism (Table 3). However, negative sentiment was strongest when relating to social and environmental conditions. More specifically, none of the 35 papers that discussed environmental conditions expressed solely positive sentiment, and only 17% showed mixed sentiment. Beyond the review, other papers have also explained that positive environmental impacts may be perceived rather than proven. For example, Diedrich (Reference Diedrich2007) states that some coral reefs may be perceived to be less impacted by a transition from extractive fishing towards tourism but that these assumptions may not be based on measured improvements. Of the papers that focused on environmental impacts, those impacts were often narrowly defined such as an impact on a specific species. For example, dolphins (e.g. Constantine et al., Reference Constantine, Brunton and Dennis2004; Lusseau, Reference Lusseau2004), penguins (e.g. Ellenberg et al., Reference Ellenberg, Setiawan, Cree, Houston and Seddon2007) and coral reefs (e.g. Zakai and Chadwick-Furman, Reference Zakai and Chadwick-Furman2002; Barker and Roberts, Reference Barker and Roberts2004). Moreover, the extensive range of environmental impacts is likely to have prevented their inclusion on the highly cited list (e.g. land cover change, wastewater discharge, land and marine litter, air pollution and water and energy consumption).

Table 3. Sentiment analysis of the 44 highly cited papers that focused on the impacts of tourism on coastal regions

The focus on specific impacts also partly explains the limited consideration of integrated management solutions, and that only two of the papers considered tourism within a broader context of ICZM. For example, while the results of the studies such as plastic pollution in coastal waters near tourist sites have management implications, the authors generally do not discuss integrated management. Instead, they seek to understand and recommend specific actions in relation to that specific impact such as variation in levels of marine plastic pollution based on tourism intensity and ways to address it in isolation. However, of the two papers that did consider ICZM, both included recognition of environmental impacts. None of the papers that focused on social or economic issues considered tourism within the context of ICZM.

In contrast to papers focused on environmental and social impacts, positive sentiment was evident in 76% of papers that discussed economic conditions. However, ‘economy’ was often vaguely defined with little detail on specific economic contributions, and where it was defined, it was largely discussed in terms of short-term inputs of capital, projections of employment opportunities for local residents or estimates of tourism expenditure. Notwithstanding that in specific cases, tourism can account for a substantial proportion of income for some communities, only a marginal proportion of the overall tourism revenue reaches those communities (Campbell, Reference Campbell1999; Sandbrook, Reference Sandbrook2010), which is particularly true in developing contexts (Lacher and Nepal, Reference Lacher and Nepal2010).

While several papers indicate significant perceived impacts (positive and negative) on social and/or economic conditions, the quantification of change in condition (e.g. income, employment, access to amenity and congestion) is scarce among the highly cited papers. Liburd et al. (Reference Liburd, Benckendorff, Carlsen, Uysal, Perdue and Sirgy2012) also point out that positive perceptions can differ to actual impacts and found that while tourism ‘has the potential to contribute to enhanced quality of life (QOL) through economic benefits … this can be at the expense of social equity, cultural identity and environmental sustainability’. Overall, there has been wide recognition of the need to ensure tourism is locally beneficial rather than impactful and has resulted in the development of a range of related concepts, from Community Benefit Tourism Initiatives (Simpson, Reference Simpson2008) to Pro Poor Tourism (Ashley and Haysom, Reference Ashley and Haysom2006). This recognition has been in part spawned by Murphy’s (Reference Murphy1985) seminal book, which proposed that tourism development should respond to local needs and led to numerous studies in this area in a range of contexts. For example, Ashley and Jones (Reference Ashley and Jones2001) discuss joint ventures between communities and tourist operators in Namibia. However, many of these studies tend to focus on business arrangements and profit sharing, rather than addressing broader long-term issues for affected communities. For example, Glup (Reference Glup2021), identifies some deeper impacts of tourism on communities such as the commodification of culture and displacement.

Honey and Krantz’s (Reference Honey and Krantz2007) report on ‘Global Trends in Coastal Tourism’ provide a more far-reaching perspective on the tourism sector, highlighting that economic impacts occur most significantly through land development. Furthermore, Honey and Krantz note that land development under the guise of tourism development is largely a short-term speculative investment that does not result in a sustained commitment to the community, environment or economy on the part of the developer. In addition, once the land development is complete and sold, the longer-term impacts of the development such as environmental degradation are usually unable to be compensated by the original developer. Honey and Krantz also found that this pattern is repeated throughout the world in both developing and developed world contexts, stating that ‘Corruption and cronyism, although difficult to document, is said to play an important role in coastal and cruise tourism decision-making, in both first and third world countries’ (p. 13). These findings are reinforced by Buckley (Reference Buckley2012), who found that political approaches are used to gain access to public spaces and natural resources. More recently, Clavé and Wilson (Reference Clavé and Wilson2017) note the ‘inherently “urbanising” nature of tourism development in the traditional coastal resort context’, whereby tourism development initially led to ‘path creation’, then to ‘path dependency’, but now has morphed into new models of urban development that differ from the ‘traditional coastal resort context’. However, Gormsen (Reference Gormsen1997) highlights historical cases of coastal tourism that also suggest coastal tourism being a form of property development. These trends exacerbate foreign ownership and wealth inequity within coastal regions and place increasing pressure on natural environments.

The polarised sentiment analysis, showing mostly negative sentiment for social and environment impacts, and mostly positive sentiment for economic impacts, also reflects the divergence within the tourism discipline. Higgins-Desbiolles (Reference Higgins-Desbiolles2020) highlights a division between tourism academics who focus on the benefits of tourism and support for the current sector business model, and those who recognise the negative impacts of tourism on environment, culture and sustainable livelihoods and call for reforms. This division has become pronounced during COVID-19 and amounts to a ‘war over tourism’, with one side arguing that critiques of the tourism sector cause harm to tourism operators, workers and tourists, while the other calling for the sector to be more ‘ethical, responsible and sustainable’ (Higgins-Desbiolles, Reference Higgins-Desbiolles2020).

While there have been calls for more comprehensive typologies of tourism for more than 25 years (e.g. Wall, Reference Wall1996), those that have been developed remain focused on micro-scale activities and interactions. For example, Acott et al. (Reference Acott, Trobe and Howard1998) discuss ecotourism as ‘deep’ or ‘shallow’ but not beyond the individual enterprise. And while Wall (Reference Wall1996) suggested that tourism needed to be viewed within a broader context of multiple other influences and impacts on communities, this ignored the more systemic influences and impacts that tourism has on broader social-ecological systems. However, there have been some attempts to raise these macro issues, albeit from a social justice, rather than a more-than-human lens. For example, Higgins-Desbiolles et al. (Reference Higgins-Desbiolles, Carnicelli, Krolikowski, Wijesinghe and Boluk2019) call for a rethink through ‘degrowing tourism’, where they argue for more emphasis on issues of equity, and where the rights of local communities should be placed ahead of those of tourists and tourism operators to make profits. More recently, Lamers and Student (Reference Lamers and Student2021) highlight that the social and environmental implications of globalisation should be considered within coastal regions, including mobilities and flows including global tourist flows.

As Gössling et al. (Reference Gössling, Scott and Hall2020) suggest, COVID-19 should present an opportunity to re-assess the growth trajectory of the tourism sector, particularly in relation to questioning whether more tourists actually result in greater benefits. However, like many other sectors, the opportunities for reform that presented through COVID-19 and the numerous other shocks before it such as the global financial crisis of 2007/2008, have not been translated into any significant global transformational action towards sustainability (Glavovic et al., Reference Glavovic, Smith and White2021).