Climate Change and Coastal & Marine Tourism: Review and Analysis

Coastal and marine tourism is a growing sector, in terms of both participation and economic relevance. For its enjoyment and safety, coastal and marine recreation requires suitable weather conditions, and attractive environments. Climate change will impact both. At the same time, tourism is an important source of the greenhouse gases (GHG) that are causing climate change. To date, and with the exception of beach recreation, most studies on climate change and tourism have concentrated either on impacts on whole countries and world regions or on certain ecosystems like coasts, focusing their attention in only one activity and overlooking the great diversity and very different weather requirements of the rest of activities these environments support. This paper reviews the importance of coastal and marine environments for recreation, presents current knowledge on the impacts of climate change on activities in these environments and identifies the main scientific gaps. This study provides an updated knowledge base for understanding climate change relationship with coastal and marine tourism and proposes a number of future research lines.