Environmental Stewardship among Beach Users and Implications for Sustainable Coastal Tourism Governance in Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh
This study analyzes the multidimensional environmental stewardship of 170 beach users in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, revealing a gap between positive ethical attitudes and actual behaviors, and proposes a "Green Beach Governance Framework" to bridge this divide through improved infrastructure, education, and policy enforcement for sustainable coastal tourism.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Coastal tourism brings people to the edge of the sea for relaxation and wonder, but it also brings heavy foot traffic, waste, and pressure to fragile ecosystems. Managing this balance requires more than just hoping visitors care about nature; it demands an understanding of how their personal values, their knowledge of environmental problems, and their willingness to act actually translate into the choices they make while on vacation. Researchers often look at "stewardship" as a single trait, assuming that if someone cares about the environment, they will naturally make eco-friendly decisions. However, real life is more complicated. A person might deeply believe in protecting the ocean yet still choose the most convenient, wasteful option because of cost, habit, or a lack of better alternatives. The question for scientists and destination managers is not just whether people care, but how their care, their knowledge, and their readiness to help fit together, and what kind of support a destination needs to turn that care into action.
In the bustling coastal district of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, a team of researchers set out to map this complex picture. They gathered data from 170 beach users, asking them about their travel habits, their views on pollution, and their willingness to contribute to environmental protection. Instead of treating environmental responsibility as a single score, the researchers broke it down into five distinct parts: how people prefer to make travel choices, their general attitude toward protecting nature, how much they think they understand about environmental issues, their sense of moral duty to help, and their actual readiness to spend time or money to fix problems. They combined these five areas into a single profile for each person, creating a detailed map of what it means to be a steward of the beach in this specific location.
The results revealed a clear and interesting gap. The visitors scored very high on their sense of moral duty, their willingness to help, and their understanding of environmental issues. On average, these scores hovered around 76 to 79 out of 100. However, when it came to their actual preferences for making eco-friendly choices while traveling, the scores dropped to about 69 out of 100. This suggests that while the people on the beach feel a strong moral obligation and are ready to help, their day-to-day travel decisions are still heavily influenced by other factors. For instance, while most visitors said they preferred hotels with energy-efficient lighting and eco-friendly building materials, a significant number also said they valued having their sheets and towels changed every day, a practice that uses more water and resources. Similarly, when choosing how to get around, practical concerns like travel time, fare, and seating availability mattered more than environmental impact. The study found that caring about the environment does not automatically override the desire for convenience or the constraints of a vacation budget.
The researchers also looked at whether a person's background or income changed how they viewed these issues. They found that a visitor's monthly income did not create a simple, steady pattern where richer people were more environmentally responsible. Instead, the scores varied in a more complicated way across different income groups, with no single trend emerging. They also checked if a visitor's geographic origin—whether they came from flat river deltas, hilly areas, or elevated plains—made a difference, but found no meaningful variation based on location. What was consistent across all groups was a strong demand for better management. Nearly all respondents supported stricter waste management, the enforcement of environmental laws, and bans on single-use plastics. More than half felt that current laws were not strong enough to stop beach pollution, indicating a clear desire for the destination to take more responsibility.
These findings led the authors to propose a new way of thinking about how to manage beaches sustainably, which they call a "Green Beach Governance Framework." This approach suggests that relying solely on visitors to make the right choices is not enough. Instead, destinations must build a system that supports those who already care. This system includes providing clear environmental education, building reliable waste and service infrastructure, enforcing rules consistently, and creating opportunities for the local community to participate. The framework argues that when these conditions are in place, the high levels of care and willingness that visitors already possess can finally be turned into real, positive actions. The study does not claim to have solved the problem of sustainable tourism, nor does it prove that these steps will work in every situation. Rather, it offers a baseline understanding of the people visiting Cox's Bazar and suggests that the path forward lies in connecting their existing good intentions with the practical tools and rules needed to make those intentions a reality.
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