ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of coastal areas for tourism, the nature of the coastal environment and the challenges for future management. The relationship between coastal areas and tourism is as old as tourism itself. Early tourists favoured seaside locations and made journeys to fashionable resorts to bathe in seawater to take advantage of its alleged curative powers. The meeting of land and sea creates biologically and geologically diverse environments as well as attractive and unique landscapes which may form the basis for tourism. Holderness is an area of coastline in East Yorkshire, stretching around 50 km from Flamborough Head to Spurn Point, with thriving tourist locations such as Bridlington, Hornsea and Withernsea. The significance of tourism has reinforced the importance of hard coastal engineering strategies to protect the amenity, including a 2 km concrete sea wall, designed to provide protection for the town, resort, attractions and the 7420 caravans.
