Civil Engineering and Architecture 4(2): 39-46, 2016 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/cea.2016.040201 Sustainable Tourism along the Red Sea: Still Possible? Amir Gohar * , G. Mathias Kondolf Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, University of California, USA Copyright©2016 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract The Red Sea is a unique resource whose potential remains underutilized. Since the 1980s development for mass tourism has destroyed the northern coastal stretches as exemplified by the city of Hurghada. A number of initiatives have taken place in the past to protect areas along the Red Sea (from Marsa Alam city South), including introduction of ecotourism and coastal planning guidelines by the Red Sea Sustainable Tourism Initiative (RSSTI) in 2000-2004. Also, the “Livelihood and Income From Environment (LIFE)” program in 2005-2008 supported implementing pilot projects in national parks to demonstrate the appropriate processes. Since 2008, local NGOs (e.g; HEPCA) initiated sustainable practices such as Solid Waste Management and Mooring Buoys. Despite these initiatives, the main obstacles to improved planning and development are found to be: (i) lack of coordination within the ministry and stakeholders, (ii) lack of contextual design relevance to the Red Sea, and (iii) inappropriate land subdivisions and development in environmentally vulnerable areas. The solutions for such complex problems are summarized below: (i) Elevate land use planning above the ministry level, (ii) incorporate appropriate planning and building education, (iii) mandatory use of Land use suitability maps in the region. Keywords Sustainable Tourism, Land Use Planning, Red Sea, Egypt 1. Introduction 1.1. Background The Red Sea is a unique environment with deserts rich in history abutting a sea whose remarkable coral reefs are among the best in the world. With its striking environment and touristic potential, sunny climate, and short flight distance from major population centers in Europe, the Egyptian Red Sea coast has tremendous potential for economic development and benefits for the nation and region. Since this coast was opened to tourism after the Camp David Accords of 1978, the number of hotel rooms shot up from about 40 in 1980, to about 1890 in 1989 to about 7000 in 1999, to over 40,000 in 2009 (1). This rapid development came with unfortunate impacts on the coast and coral reefs (2). Most of the coast is flanked by a fringing coral reef, which blocks access to deep water (3). Exceptions are the mouths of dry streams (wadis), where there are breaks in the fringing reef and commonly embayments (marsas) that offer anchorage and access to deep water for boats, snorkelling opportunities along the reef edge of the embayment, and swimming beaches along the landward shore. Thus, the best places for tourist resorts are next to marsas, with their access to snorkelling and open water. However, development has been promoted (by the Tourism Development Authority) on parcels evenly distributed along the coast; most sites are along fringing reef, where it is impossible to swim in the sea. This motivated some developers near Hurghada to physically remove the reef in front of their hotels, or to fill over the reef in attempts to create direct access to deep water; (4). While such blatant destruction is no longer common, development patterns along the coast are still not informed by the underlying carrying capacity of the coastal geomorphology, coastal waters and thus their coral reefs) have been affected by chronic pollution and are at risk of extensive contamination from flash floods that will scour waste dumps in Wadis and carry chemicals, garbage, and other pollutants out to the coral reef (5) and (6) 1.2. Objective This paper aims to analyze exiting institutional structure under which development occurs in order to understand the points of deficits in the planning process. In addition, critically review the environmental planning initiatives that have taken place so far and understand their successes and failures in order to inform the decision makers of future considerations while designing or implementing such projects. And inform private developers on best practices to consider while working on new development along the Egyptian Southern area of the Red Sea coast.