Blue Seas: Fighting Coastal Erosion
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lead them to switch to other destinations. The associated losses would equate to more than US$75 million per year (Raybould et al. 2013). Hence, the retreat of beaches could lead to severe economic losses, especially in regions that are primarily visited for their beaches, as is the case in many coastal-tourism destinations in the Middle East and North Africa. These findings imply that the relationship between tourists’ unwillingness to return and beach width can be thought of as having a shape like the one depicted in figure 5.3. In coastal districts, a higher share of open or flat coastlines (that is, intact beaches) is a significant determinant of higher accommodation prices (Hamilton 2007). In Spain’s northeast territory of Catalonia, hotels along the Costa Brava that are near a beach with “Blue Flag c ertification” have room prices that are more than 10 percent higher on average (Rigall-I-Torrent et al. 2011) than hotels without such a nearby beach.
FIGURE 5.3
Unwillingness to return
Stylized Relationship between Beach Width and Visitors’ Unwillingness to Return
Beach width Source: Heger and Vashold 2021.
