ABSTRACT

Tourism is believed to be the golden egg for many countries worldwide and especially for tourism destinations. It is in fact based on environmental resources, whether natural or man-made, which are regarded as tourism’s initial, valuable assets. It benefits a wide range of stakeholders, leading to cultural interactions between visitors and locals, creating employment opportunities, infrastructural and tourism facilities improvement, and an open market for local products. However, unplanned or uncontrolled tourism poses possible threats to the environment. The consequences include, but are not limited to, all types of pollution and damage to vegetation cover that severally endangers biodiversity distribution, causes loss of natural habitats and even badly affects local culture and heritage. Therefore, it has been necessary to delineate, assess, and mitigate the environmental impacts of tourism. Assessment of environmental impacts has been developed and intensively investigated. Therefore, maintaining a balance between the destination’s carrying capacities and tourists’ activities is crucial to minimize or even stop detrimental effects on the environment. It is believed that the magic solution lies in two alternatives: the first is applying restrictions leading to conservation of the natural environment within the operation of all tourism activities, and the second is promoting and marketing different forms of tourism that may outweigh the negative impacts of tourism, including: eco-tourism, environmental tourism, sustainable tourism, nature-based tourism, rural tourism, and green tourism.