Environmental Impacts of Tourism Development along Coastal Areas in Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam

• Main Authors: Nguyen Thi My Trinh, 阮美貞
• Other Authors: Lo Kwong Fai Andrew
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/u2s47g

碩士 === 中國文化大學 === 地學研究所地理組 === 106 === Tourism is considered as one of the world's fastest growing industries and is a major economic sector in tropical developing countries. In Vietnam, coastal tourism is also a significant portion of the national economy due to diverse coastal environment with a variety of ecosystems and a tremendous potential for developing coastal tourism. These include wonderful natural scenery, sandy beaches, rocky headlands, sand dunes, mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands, sea-grasses. In recent years, coastal tourism has strongly developed with the number of tourists and revenue continuously increased every year. However, unplanned tourism development caused obvious negative impacts on coastal environment and ecosystems, which will increase with exploitation unless preventive solutions are adopted. In the majority of coastal area’s information on tourism and its impacts is poor. The main purposes of this study are to evaluate the impacts of tourism development along coastal areas with a specific focus on tourism infrastructure such as the construction of hotels, resorts, roads and recreational activities on natural environment in small islands of Nha Trang Bay in Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam. Then, propose solutions to minimize negative impacts and aim for sustainable tourism development. The unplanned development of resorts and recreational activities (snorkeling, scuba diving, boating, cruise ships fishing) to meet increasing demand of tourists have led to consequences such as loss of marine biological diversity, the change of coral reefs cover, discharges into the sea, and environmental pollution. Field surveys research methods were used to assess the perception of tourists and local residents about sustainable tourism development and the awareness of them of the negative environmental impact of tourism activities.