ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the overlap of coastal tourism and culinary tourism, with a focus on the seafood eaten while visiting coastal or other aquatic regions. It focuses on issues concerning biodiversity, public health, animal welfare, sustainability, ecology, and economics – in order to demonstrate “the problem of seafood tourism,” as well as to explore some possible solutions. The chapter also focuses on fish, shellfish, aquatic mammals, reptiles, and jellyfish, but not sea plants or vegetables. While seafood tourism is typically centered around the consumption of aquatic animals, it can also include a variety of social and cultural experiences. Biodiversity concerns are only heightened by our changing climate. One of the most critical issues within seafood tourism is the ability of aquatic animals to feel pain. Within the US the predominance of research on seafood tourism within the tourism literature has been conducted in South Carolina and Florida, and it has an economic focus.
