Coastal and Mari- Coastal and Mari-time Tourism in the MED

area.

categories protected which accounts for 8.58% of the total area of the Republic of Croatia, i.e. 12.25% of the land territory and 1.94% of the territorial sea. The ma-jority of protected areas are nature parks (4.56% of total state territory).

Up to 36.67% of land territory and 16.39%

of the coastal sea is under NATURA 2000 protection. The network consists of 571 polygon conservation areas important for species and habitat types (POVS), 171 points sensitive conservation areas of species and habitat types (mostly caves) (POVS) and 38 polygon conservation areas important for birds (POPs).

Due to the mentioned attractants in a combination with clean Adriatic Sea and plenitude of islands, Croatia has a large potential for touristic development increase. The development difficulty of the economy in the Croatia, in general, is poor diversification of the activity of small and medium entrepreneurship.

Existing ones, in majority of cases, are not strong enough to trigger economic development. Unlike that, tourism, which involves not just a significant number of SMEs, but also a large proportion of residents, contains the potential that can prevent the trend of job losses and attract professional workforce in the area of need.

The uniqueness and tourist attractiveness of the coast and the hinterland can be directed to the extension of the tourist season as well as to the diversification of activities within the tourist sector. As a guide to the development of tourism, the Strategy of Tourism Development supports numerous economic activities through development priorities and measures.

3.5.2.3 Cyprus

TTourism market, one of the largest economic sectors in Cyprus, has experi-enced substantial growth over the last five years, with tourists reaching 3.2 million in 2016. It is noteworthy that whenever tourism in Cyprus is examined, the overwhelming majority of the tourist product of Cyprus is of coastal and mari-time nature. As eloquently put in the 2017 Cyprus Tourism Strategy Final Report by THR “Cyprus’ beaches constitute one of the highest value tourist assets of the country, with 350 kilometres of coastline and the cleanest water in Europe.” The European Commission has awarded 59 Cyprus beaches with Blue Flags.

Nonetheless, it is true that Cyprus shows a wide array of historical and cultural attractions, of which 125 are easily acces-sible due to the country’s size. UNESCO has recognized three of them as World Heritage Sites.

Cyprus’ tourism industry has been hon-oured with numerous prestigious awards, spanning the sustainable Destinations Global Top 100, an initiative of

Travel-Mole.com, VISION on Sustainable Tourism, Totem Tourism and Green Destination titles bestowed to Limassol and Paphos in December 2014. In addition, the Cyprus Tourism Organisation is proud to be the winner of the Silver Award as the ‘Best Destination for Responsible Tourism’, which was announced at the prestigious World Responsible Tourism Awards ceremony. This event was held on the 4th of November 2015 at the World Travel Market, the leading global event for the travel industry.

3.5.2.4 France

In France, the coastal tourism represents 7.1% of the GDP and Sud PACA and Occit- anie regions provide a significant contribu-tion to this part. These two regions have an important potential of attractiveness mainly thanks to their coastal areas. They have not the same dynamics; indeed, in Occitanie region tourism is more of na-tional provenance than Sud PACA region where it is more an international tourism.

They have many attractive features with Marine Protected Areas, significant cultural heritage, many marine activities that could be developed in these territo-ries (with already some strengths well exploited such as boating or water sports depending on the region).

To sum up, the recently trend in the coastal tourism is due to the public awareness to preserve the environment and the desire to strengthen the knowl-edge about cultural heritage. The technol-ogy can provide an answer to the trend by providing new services and offers.

These last few years the importance of the environmental preservation increase in the tourist strategies, the coastal area needs to be attractiveness with a good water quality, ecological amenities for tourist infrastructures and a wide variety of activities to attract more and reduce the pressure on the coastal ecosystem.

3.5.2.5 Greece

As shown by the World Tourism Organi-zation, tourism is one of the key compo-nents of economic growth. An overall view of the course of international tourism, despite any seasonal and local fluctua-tions, shows remarkable resilience and shows a steady increasing trend. It is estimated that this long-term trend will not change, and tourism will continue to grow throughout this century contributing to the communication and understanding of the societies and cultures. Particularly for Greece, the analysis of temporal data reveals the long-term stability of tourist revenues, which showed resilience during the great economic recession, suggesting that tourism is a promising investment of “low risk” for the country’s economic development.

Coastal and maritime tourism is a signifi-cant sub-sector of both the wider tourism sector and the Blue Economy. Many coastal economies are dependent upon their tourism activities. In addition to the direct income and employment that tour-ism brings to coastal communities, it can provide additional benefits that include investment and infrastructure (EU, 2016a).

Greece is a country blessed with 16.000 km of coastline and over than 3.000 amazingly unique islands. Her idyllic climate and friendly seas make this country an ideal destination for yacht-ing and water sports of all kinds⁴⁶. The intensity of tourist activity seems to be in line with the natural landscapes and the geographical distribution of its cultural resources throughout the country. This spatial patchiness requires actions for its balanced development in a regional de-velopment context. Besides, Greece must quit from the annual time limits of April to October, taking advantage of its archaeo-logical sites, its cultural heritage, history, religious tourism, traditional tastes and more, in order to stimulate the market, especially in the islands. This would benefit the activity of the entire grid of the terrestrial and maritime tourism, the employment of workers and the national economy in general.

Coastal tourism is massive, however, derived from laissez-faire market forces.

Nevertheless, a framework for Spatial

46https://greek-marinas.gr/en/gma-profile/

Planning and Sustainable Tourism, as a means for improving decision-making in relation to the use of natural resources and space and their allocation between different sectoral or user’s interests on the basis of clear assessments of max-imum carrying capacity, after two failed attempts (2009, 2013), is notably missing today. The high and increasing volumes of visitors, against a limited carrying capacity of facilities and environment, are often putting pressure on local systems (e.g. waste, water, energy). Furthermore, local management systems are often not equipped to manage such stress, resulting in even greater negative environmental externalities and severe damage of the sustainability of the sector’s performance in the future.

In recent years, there is an increasing interest in alternative forms of vacations compared to the mass tourism type hav-ing less negative consequences on recep-tion destinarecep-tions without any reducrecep-tion in the positive financial results. Modern tourism is influenced by changes in human values, lifestyle and consumption pat-terns, and is characterized by a shift from

“the service economy to the economy of experience”, while being at the same time strongly influenced by the technological rapid development.

Despite, however, the massive modes of coastal tourism and the above changing

values and new capabilities, maritime tourism in the form of recreation and tourism in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and nautical tourism remain underdevel-oped, although they are ideal for Greece.

MPAs are unique places established with different purposes, namely to protect the environment, preserve a cultural, historic or archaeological site such as ancient shipwrecks, or ensure sustainable produc-tion of a resource. Recreaproduc-tion and tourism in MPAs, nature and cultural, combined with nautical tourism are an important niche market with a large potential for sustainable jobs and growth. The upgrad-ing of maritime tourism in Greece requires enhanced skills, technology and innova-tion, accessibility, quality and environ-mental sustainability.

3.5.2.6 Italy

Coastal and maritime tourism offer and products involves all the economic activities related to offers and products in coastal regions of the European Union such as nautical sports, green tourism, courses for underwater excursions. Italy has a coastal extension of 7.600 kilome-tres and it is among the top five world tourism destinations and the second tour-ism destination in maritime areas in the European Union after Spain. Almost two thirds of total tourist arrivals in the Adri-atic and Ionian regions are in Italy. Coastal

and maritime tourism has historically been mass-type, especially in the North-ern-Adriatic region. Coastal and maritime tourism in Italy is characterized also by a high degree of seasonality. A crucial issue of this subsector is that its development heavily depends upon the quality of the seawater. At the same time, uncontrolled tourism could be a threat to the integrity of the sea environment because mass tourism deteriorates bathing water qual-ity. Italian public and private research in-stitutions actively participate in research projects and technological innovations in the fields of sustainable growth and the analysis of the externalities of coastal and maritime touristic activities on the environment and landscape.

Another important sector of coastal and maritime tourism is leisure boating and yachting. Italy is the third Member State for recreational crafts - after Sweden and Finland - and one of the main destina-tions for leisure boating along with Spain, Croatia and Greece. Numerous technical and manufacturing maritime districts have operated in Italy since the XIX century in both the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coasts.

Most of the firms have small-medium dimensions, with the exception of the district of Genoa, and the sector produces almost 20 billion euros in annual reve-nues.

Concerning cruising,Fincantieri, whose

op-erability dates back to the end of the XVIII century, is a leader shipbuilder in Europe and among the largest shipbuilders in the world. The Italian group is a recognized world leader in cruise ships design and construction with approximately 19.000 employees in Italy and abroad. Almost 32 million passengers disembark every year in Europe, and Greece and Italy are the top two destinations. Thanks to its milder weather, the cruise sector in Southern Europe is characterized by less seasonali-ty with respect to both traditional coastal and maritime tourism and the segment of the Baltic Sea. The main issues at the European and national level are the con-siderable ecological pressure of cruises on water pollution and litter production:

environmental issues related to the cruise sector are indeed the main topics of scientific and technological research in the field.

At national level, an important reference for the transport sector represented by the National Technology Cluster for surface mobility “Trasporti Italia 2020”.

Some of its territorial institutions, such as for example mare FVG, include maritime tourism among its activities.

Underwater cultural heritage is also very important. Italy has a great potential of attractiveness and the Ministries of Cul-tural Heritage and Education, University and Research finance several university degrees in underwater archaeology and national and international research proj-ects on the preservation and promotion of the national underwater heritage.

The last two sub-sectors refer to activi-ties, services and technologies aimed at allowing and safeguarding the possibility to have and maintain tourism activities in a certain area, protecting the coast from flooding and erosion (Coastal Protec-tion and Adaptaflooding and erosion (Coastal Protec-tion to Climate Change (CP&CCA)) and monitoring the environ-mental quality (water, habitats, also through Earth Observation techniques).

In Italy, 13.000 potentially contaminating sites have been identified. Among the marine-coastal areas characterized by the greatest anthropogenic impact, some par-ticularly polluted sites (so-called national interest sites) are established, covering about 1.800 square kilometres where the pollution of soil, sub-soil, surface water, groundwater and marine waters is so extensive and serious to represent a dramatic hazard for both public health and environment. The management of sediments in these sites is particularly complex, mainly due to the large volumes of polluted soils/sediments, the relative high level of contamination, and the lack of an appropriate legislation and specific guidelines, as well as the considerable economic costs required to operate reme-diation procedure.

A further, and generally underestimated

specific aspect of risk associated to these highly contaminated territories is that of natural hazards (earthquakes, landslides, hydrological instability, etc.) which could provoke additional effects on mecha-nisms of widespread re-distribution of contaminant and impact on a wider range of environmental compartments with unforeseen effects on the ecosystem and human health safety.

The remediation of marine-coastal envi-ronment characterized by the presence of pollutants of anthropogenic origin is therefore of strategic interest for the Italian blue growth system. And this is not only in relation to the enormous extent of marine-coastal spaces currently unavailable for the development of blue economies directly related to the marine system, but also with reference to signifi-cant damage to the health of populations living in neighbouring areas.

However, the interest in the sustainability issue for contaminated historical sites has not been limited to the sole initiative of each Member State. European Union has strongly contributed to the development and dissemination of the sustainability approach both by prescribing the adoption of shared and “sustainable” solutions in some of the most recent Environmental Directives⁴⁷ and by promoting and financ-ing many research projects on contami-nated sites and brownfields.

These projects contributed to create a network of knowledge and transnational research that helped to focus on the prob- lems and to influence the European en-vironmental policy. An updated estimate (Confindustria, 2016) indicates that the remediation phase of the most polluted sites requires an investment of about 10 billion €. In addition, re-industrialization processes, following the remediation phase, would lead to an increase in the production level of more than 20 billion € over a period of five years and in the total added value of about 10 billion € linked to a planned increase of about 200,000 standard work units, i.e. jobs, (Confind-ustria, 2016). Investments on direct and indirect (conversion of uses after remedi-ation) environmental remediation could then provide a definitely positive economic impact with an estimated doubling of incomes and important impact on divers job sectors.

When considering the current economic crisis and the evolving political, social and environmental conditions in the Mediterranean Region and in Italy in particular, it becomes apparent that all the multidisciplinary actors from different countries need to build an ideal environ-ment for constructive dialogue. It also lay the groundwork for conditions that allow societies, economics and policies to attract investments while, reconciling tensions and balancing economic growth,

social implications and environmental conservation.

Tackling climate change, Italy coasts is one of the global hotspots for glob-al warming, understanding ecosystem function, managing sustainability, all require the most effective initiatives and strategies. Hence, the EU Blue Growth initiative represents a long-term strategy to support growth in the maritime sector as a whole by harnessing the untapped potential of Europe’s oceans, seas and coasts for the creation of “blue” jobs and economic growth.

3.5.2.7 Spain

More than 82 million international tourists visited Spain during 2017, a year that closed with an increase of 8.9% in the number of visitors and a total expenditure of 87.000 million euros, that is, 12.4%

more compared to previous year. Accord-ing to data provided by the National In-stitute of Statistics (INE) and Turespaña, Spain occupies the second international position in the number of tourist arrivals, overtaking the United States and having France as a leader.

Not only has the number of visits im-proved. The 82 million tourists in 2017 have spent 12.4% more than they have spent their predecessors, with a total of

€ 87.000. It is estimated that each tourist increased their expenditures by more than 3%, which represents an average expendi-ture of € 1.061 during the stay.

During the first half of 2018, Spain has already surpassed 28.5 million tourists.

This figure, compared to the previous year, represents an increase of 6% according to the latest FRONTUR figures.

Concerning just the MED area of Spain, figures are quite significant about tourism importance. We are talking about more than 21.300 lodging establishments, of which about 5.000 are hotels, ready to accept almost one million travellers. In fact, there have been 185, million nights contracted, for average stay of 5 days.

There are 1.637 beaches in MED zone, of which only 329 have no infrastructure on the beach, and about 500 have all the infrastructures already in place. There are 160 areas appropriate for diving and another 113 for surfing. Sport ports are 174, for more than 80.000 vessels, but we have to add almost 800 beaches where anchoring is possible. Recreational fishing licenses grow up to 455.000.

Finally, we have in Spanish Mediterranean coast 2.210 cruising ships that give leisure to almost 6 million people every year.

These figures indicate a very mature tour-istic sector, and it is true that is growing continuously since many years ago. Lately even faster, due to the situation of North African countries which instability in terms of security and services is benefit-ing Spanish destinations, but under these

47Water Framework Directive 2000/60 / EC, Directive 2004/35 / EC

48INE (2018). Estatisticas do Turismo 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2018. www.ine.pt

49Central Intelligence Agency (2018). “Portugal: CIA World Factbook”. Retrieved 28 October 2018. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/po.html

circumstances lies a continuous im-provement and growth of infrastructures.

Nevertheless, there is still margin to improve, in special with new businesses, new packages and new activities that up to now have not been enough put in value.

Activities like fishing-tourism, packages including “sun & beach” and cultural and ethnological tours or businesses like navigate for photographing dolphins can strongly improve the quality and quantity of tourism in these areas.

3.5.2.8 Portugal

In 2017, the number of international tourist arrivals was 1.323 million in the world, corresponding to an increase of 84 million when compared with the previous year, according to the data available from the World Tourism Organization. This outcome stood for a 6.8% increase in 2017, reinforcing the growth in previous years (+3.7% in 2016). Europe kept being the preferred destination of internation-al tourists, concentrating the major-ity (50.7%) of arrivals (671.1 million), benefiting from an 8.4% increase in 2017, i.e. 6.1 p.p. above the rate recorded in the previous year⁴⁸.

Portugal is a coastal nation in south-western Europe, located at the western end of the Iberian Peninsula, bor-dering the North Atlantic Ocean and Spain (on its northern and eastern frontiers: a total of 1.214 kilometres). The Portuguese territory also includes the archipelagos of Azores and Madeira), which are strategic islands along the North Atlantic. The ex-treme south is not too far from the Strait of Gibraltar, leading to the Mediterranean Sea. In total, the country occupies an area of 92.090 square kilometres of which 91.470 square kilometres is land and 620

Portugal is a coastal nation in south-western Europe, located at the western end of the Iberian Peninsula, bor-dering the North Atlantic Ocean and Spain (on its northern and eastern frontiers: a total of 1.214 kilometres). The Portuguese territory also includes the archipelagos of Azores and Madeira), which are strategic islands along the North Atlantic. The ex-treme south is not too far from the Strait of Gibraltar, leading to the Mediterranean Sea. In total, the country occupies an area of 92.090 square kilometres of which 91.470 square kilometres is land and 620