The popularity of the Mediterranean Sea and its coastal regions amongst tourists remains at an all-time high. After a temporary covid dip, the latest figures show that numbers of tourists have already reached pre-pandemic levels and are further on the rise. Traditional ‘sun, sea, and sand’ tourism has boosted livelihoods and constitutes 11.5% of total employment in Mediterranean countries, making it a key economic sector.

However, it exerts significant environmental pressure, causing pollution, uncontrolled coastal development, and increased demand for water, food, and energy. Combined with rising temperatures, this makes the current model unsustainable in the long term. Additionally, these same pressures might, in the medium-long run, have the paradoxical effect of lowering the attractiveness of tourist destinations in the Mediterranean.

For the Western Mediterranean, as stated in the WestMED Malta Ministerial Declaration (2023), one of the key goals of the WestMED Initiative is to ‘strengthen the competitiveness and sustainability of the coastal and maritime tourism sector, as part of a smart and resilient blue economy. This, by preserving the marine and coastal environment as well as marine cultural heritage and contributing to the attractiveness of coastal areas by means of ecotourism, digitalization and mobilizing private-public investments.’

Given the fact that tourism plays such a significant role in the Western Mediterranean as one of the key contributors to both the upside gains as well as the downside risks of the blue economy, there is an urgent need for enhancing eco-tourism in the region.