How Coastal Squeeze Reshapes Beach Availability and Tourism Demand

Since satellite altimetry began in 1993, global mean sea level has risen by approximately 10–11 cm over the past three decades, accelerating coastal erosion and shoreline retreat worldwide. In many coastal regions, the inland migration of shorelines is constrained by fixed artificial structures such as seawalls and urban development, resulting in a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze. Despite its relevance for beach-dependent economies, empirical assessments linking coastal squeeze to tourism dynamics remain limited.

In this backdrop, we aim to quantitatively examine how climate change–induced spatial compression affects beach availability and coastal tourism across island and coastal nations highly dependent on beach tourism over the period 1995–2022. Using monthly Landsat imagery, we construct a Potential Beach Availability Index (PBAI) by identifying water bodies and artificial built-up surfaces based on NDWI and NDBI and excluding them from total land area within 1 km and 10 km inland buffers from national coastlines. The two buffer distances distinguish shoreline-adjacent space directly relevant for beach use from broader inland space reflecting longer-term migration potential under coastal squeeze. We then link the satellite-derived PBAI to tourism statistics from the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), focusing on international tourist arrivals staying at least one night during the same period.

Our results reveal a pronounced decline in PBAI after 2013, indicating a substantial reduction in potentially usable coastal space. In contrast, international tourist arrivals continued to increase until 2019, reflecting a global rise in travel demand. Using two-way fixed-effects panel regressions to control for country-specific heterogeneity and common global time trends, we find that PBAI within the 1 km buffer is positively associated with tourist arrivals, whereas PBAI within the 10 km buffer exhibits a negative relationship. This spatial asymmetry suggests that tourism demand is more sensitive to the availability of land in close proximity to the shoreline than to broader inland space.

By explicitly quantifying coastal squeeze and linking it to tourism outcomes, this study demonstrates that continued growth in tourism demand may mask underlying spatial constraints on beach resources. The findings underscore the importance of accounting for coastal space limitations in sustainable tourism planning and climate adaptation strategies for vulnerable coastal destinations.