Sustainable Tourism

Task Performance – Midterm

16th of November 2022

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

“Maya Bay, Thailand”

Submitted to:

Mrs. Marynila Joy Mendoza

Submitted by:

Group 1

Aubrey Pama

Julie Ann Villamiel

Keana Cedo

Maria Luz Grace Piando

Jillian Ysheen Cruz

Kenneth Manuel
INTRODUCTION

Maya Bay is a stunningly beautiful bay located on Phi Phi Island. Surrounded by steep
limestone cliffs, Maya Bay has several beaches leading down to an amazing turquoise
color water. The main one is around 200 meter wide white sandy beach.
Snorkeling and diving are highly recommended activities when you visit Maya Bay. It is
a spectacular place to see underwater colorful coral and fish live in the crystal clear
water. You can also find other water sports such as canoeing, fishing and rowing tour at
Maya Bay.

Maya bay has become the tourist attraction after the 2000 movie “The Beach” was
filmed there. Because of its clear greenish blue water and its dramatic cliffs that rise up
out of the clear waters, Maya Bay was chosen as the main location in the film. The bay
attracts hundreds of visitors everyday. It became the favorite vacation spot for couples
and families.

Best time to visit Maya Bay is from November to April due to there are large waves in
other months that can make the bay’s entrance dangerous for boats.
HISTORY

In the 1990s a film crew decided that Maya Bay, on the island of Phi Phi Leh in southern
Thailand, was the kind of heaven-on-earth idyll where a group of people who wanted to
rebuild society from scratch might settle.

The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was released in the year 2000. Based on the
book by Alex Garland, it tells the story of a backpacker's search for a legendary beach
untouched by tourism. Obviously things turn sour in paradise.

Since then this tiny, but now iconic, strip of sand has topped bucket lists of people
around the world consumed by wanderlust.

Already high, the volume of visitors to the area saw an astonishing spike in 2016 when
Chinese tourists started coming in large numbers.

(SET OF QUESTIONS)

1. Describe the Physical Setting of Maya Bay in Thailand.

• Before Closure
- Maya bay is one of Thailand's best tourist destinations, and it was made
famous by the film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, when it served as
the setting. According to the DNP data, tourist arrivals in Maya have
increased due to its popularity because of the beauty of Maya Bay, this
location has attracted 2.5 million visitors by 2018, with another half-million
expected in coming years. Maya Bay can accommodate up to 4,000 tourists
and 200 boats per day, which ecologists agree is too much for the bay and
because of the high influx of tourists, Maya Bay will be closed for 4 months.
Maya Bay's closure was provided to help the destination in recovering from
the effects of overcrowding.

• During Closure
- Maya Bay was closed in 2018 after park officials realized things had gotten
out of hand. The plan was for four months of intense rehabilitation, but
experts quickly realized that the damage was so severe that proper recovery
would take years. As shown in a DNP survey, the coral reef flats in certain
parts of the bay have been degraded and severely damaged, and broken
coral and fragments are visible on the seafloor. Tourist boats and their
anchors are said to be a major cause of problems and destruction. The first
task to aid in the bay's rehabilitation was coral propagation, which involves
attaching branches of damaged corals to rocks so that they can grow on
them. 2,000 coral points are expected to develop in Maya's waters. DNP also
plans to examine the recovery of the bay's ecosystems and how they will
manage with the effects of tourism. They also need to improve the bay's
 management strategy by minimizing the number of people and boats that the
bay may take per day, which is estimated to be 2,000 tourists and 100 boats

2. Describe how visitors access Maya Bay.

• Before Closure
- Before Maya Bay was shut for the first time due to ecological
recovery, hordes of tourists visited via boat. Visiting by speedboat
was one of the most common ways, followed by a long tail boat ride

• During Closure
- Boats can nonetheless go to Maya bay Phi Phi Island & Bamboo
Island through speedboat from Phuket however viewing the Beach is
precisely restrained to travelers while they stay on the boat at the
buoy line zone restrict that stretches from one side of the bay to the
other. No one is permitted to walk on the beach or swim in the Bay
area.

3. What visitor activities were present in Maya Bay before its closure?

- Maya Bay is a superb place for various water activities such as snorkelling,
diving, and kayaking. There is not a kayak rental place at Maya Bay, but it still
has wide open water to go around. One of the most popular and selected
modes of transportation for visitors to Maya Bay, Thailand, were speed boats.
Numerous boatloads of visitors visited Maya Bay prior to its closure to allow
for ecological rehabilitation. Usually, this was followed by a protracted trip on
a tail boat.

- One of Thailand’s most picturesque regions, Maya Bay attracted a large

number of tourists. Prior to the closure, early bird tours were even offered so
that guests may take in Maya Bay’s pristine and serene beauty before
throngs of tourists congested the sands surrounding the bay. Many visitors
enjoy the beaches here because of the white sands and blue waters. There
are many other activities that you can do around these islands such as rock
climbing thanks to the high cliffs on and around the island chain. Many visitors
arrive here specifically to see the beach views, but it’s not the only thing you
can accomplish while at Maya Bay. There are several other pleasurable
activities to enjoy and includes a cave, eating, and explore.

4. How were visitor activities managed in Maya Bay?

- The visitor activities were managed in Maya Bay by closing the tourist
destination so that they can rehabilitate the destination from the
overcrowding. They extended the closure of the destination to give the
ecosystems and structures more time to recover. Also, they recover the bay
by their task where they will attached the corals to stones so that it will grow
there. They decided that the access to the bay will be shifted at the back of
the island and the tourist and transport boats will be limited depending on the
results of the study in terms of the capacity of the tourist destination.