Lessons learned from carrying capacity assessment of dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea

Diving tourism sector provides the great benefits to local and national economy as well as supports local employment and livelihoods. However some tourism activities can generate negative impacts on coral reefs. Hence, the... [ view full abstract ]

Diving tourism sector provides the great benefits to local and national economy as well as supports local employment and livelihoods. However some tourism activities can generate negative impacts on coral reefs. Hence, the concept of tourism carrying capacity has been applied in many dive sites globally. The carrying capacity gives the maximum number of tourists at a certain tourism site can accommodate sustainably. In this study, we assessed the tourism carrying capacity at several dive sites i.e. Mu Ko Samed and Mu Ko Chang in the Eastern Gulf of Thailand, Mu Ko Chumphon in the Western Gulf of Thailand, Mu Ko Surin, Mu Ko Similan, and Ao Phang-nga in the Andaman Sea. We found that some areas, for examples some dive sites at Mu Ko Similan, exceeded the carrying capacity while some were still below the carrying capacity. Some obstacles were found in controlling the number of tourists not to exceed the carrying capacity due to a growing tourism demand resulted from the national policy on tourism development and promotion. High conflict with tourism business operator is always occurred when the marine national parks regulate the number of tourists. To overcome those obstacles, we should focus on controlling tourist’s behavior on how to dive without having impacts on coral reefs, educating dive leaders, providing artificial reefs for recreational diving to reduce pressures on natural reefs.