Tourism in the Coastal Area Between Saida Soualha-el Konaa and Its Hinterland: Potentials, Amenities, and Environmental Challenges

Abstract

Tourism is one of the major sectors that contributes to the added value in many countries. Certainly, “mass tourism" is the most prosperous activity worldwide, especially for underdeveloped countries, despite the great wealth, they encompass in terms of natural landscape and human heritage. However, these countries encourage mass tourism, just for the reason of creating jobs and wealth for the operators in this field. The natural landscape, the quality of services provided by the region and the degree of thermal comfort are among the most important factors that contribute to its selection as a touristic destination. However, the study of thermal comfort runs up against a dilemma, represented by the deficiency of measurements of the different climatic elements that must consider, in their distribution, the changes in the geomorphological landscape and the evolution of vegetation cover in terms of composition and distribution, as well as the degree of topographic complexity. Despite all the advantages that it can generate on the local economies of the regions El Haridha and Al Shuqaiq, tourism contributes significantly to the degradation of the coastal environment and the plain of Tihama. Based on the analysis of the natural environment components and the water and soil analysis carried out by several researchers, the main challenges, and obstructions to the successful promotion of tourism in the southwestern front of Saudi Arabia have been identified.  Until today, the region El Haridha- Al Shuqaiq still suffers from a lack of sustainable a fully tourism infrastructure, as the private car is still the most used means of transportation for all trips. However, there are several ways to apply the principles that are the basis of sustainable tourism. But the rapid and continuing growth of tourism has led to enormous pressure, following the establishment of an inappropriate tourism infrastructure along the beaches rich in mangroves and coral reefs. The modeling of the atmospheric temperature, humidity, and the index of the land surface temperature (LST) of the entire southwestern coastal belt as well as its hinterland show that the climatic environment between Saida Soualha and Konaa presents favorable conditions to think of other tourist circuits of great opportunities.