Professor John Fletcher, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation, from Bournemouth University, highlighted the risk to fragile ecosystems that large numbers of tourists pose. He told MailOnline Travel: ‘The events in Koh Tachai reflect the tension between the exotic environment, its attraction to tourists and the impact they have.
‘There has been a similar debate over closing Maya Bay on the island of Phi Phi which gained notoriety after the film The Beach was shot there. Ironically, tourists are attracted to fragile ecosystems because of their beauty but the presence of tourists can destroy the very thing that they came to enjoy.
‘In larger destinations this tension between the tourism industry and the environment can be managed to ensure that they can live in harmony – however, in the case of Koh Tachai the size of the island makes it so vulnerable to negative impacts it is likely to suffer rapidly even with small numbers of tourists.
‘The tourism industry – is just that, it is an industry and it often needs volume to thrive and the tour operators often set out their stalls on the basis of large tourist numbers. Fragile ecosystems cannot be sustained in the face of large tourist numbers and there are many destinations that can testify to this including those as diverse as Mount Everest, The Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, Uluru (Ayres Rock) that have all been put at risk by the volume of tourists.’