Global patterns in mangrove recreation and tourism

The use of mangroves as a travel and tourism destination has not received much attention, but provides a high-value, low impact use of these important ecosystems. This work quantifies and maps the distribution of mangrove visitation at global scales using keyword searches on user-generated content of the popular travel website, TripAdvisor. It further explores the use of user-generated content to uncover information about facilities, activities and wildlife in mangrove tourism locations world-wide. Some 3945 mangrove attractions are identified in 93 countries and territories. Boating is the most widespread activity, recorded in 82% of English-language sites. Birdlife is recorded by visitors in 28% of sites, with manatees/dugongs and crocodiles/alligators also widely reported. It is likely that mangrove tourism attracts tens to hundreds of millions of visitors annually and is a multi-billion dollar industry.