Coastal Tourism in Southeast Asia: Research from the Environmental Perspective: Poh Poh Wong

To the average person, coastal tourism is associated with sun, sea, sand, and resort comfort. From a research point of view, coastal tourism represents the interaction of a human system (tourism) and an environmental system (coast). The interaction of these two systems involves a wide variety of human and environmental aspects (Wong, 1991). Most studies on coastal tourism emphasize the tourism system rather than the environmental system and the interaction between these two systems. Also, many studies tend to focus on resort land use and morphology and on the patterns and processes of coastal tourism (Pearce, 1995; Burton, 1995).