Tourism in Mediterranean
    The Mediterranean Basin has an exceptionally rich range of natural and cultural values, the explanation for its tourist potential. The area is the world's main focus of tourist attraction. In 1996, this area received 175,726,000 international tourists representing 30% of the tourists flow in the world. This tourist flow has clear repercussions in the Mediterranean's economy; about five million jobs and an income of more than 100,000 million dollars a year, representing - in the coastal strip – about 7% of the Gross Domestic Product.
    Tourist infrastructure is sited in the coastal strip, in a thin layer that ignores the adjacent inland areas. In fact, 75% of the tourist activity in the Mediterranean is concentrated in the four countries that are members of the European Union, and only 25% is generated in the rest of the Mediterranean Basin. It is concentrated in time, because the arrival of tourists is highly seasonal, peaking in the summer period, a fact that increases the impact on the environment and weakens the economic model of Mediterranean tourism. It is clear that most of the tourist spaces in the Mediterranean seem to have entered a structural crisis. In fact, year after year, the Mediterranean Basin is losing its capacity to attract tourists; though it is still the world's main tourist destination, in the last five years it has lost more than three percent of the world tourism market.
    The consolidation of the new tourist areas seems to be a consequence rather than a cause of the Mediterranean's decreasing importance as a destination for the world's tourists; and it is clear that environmental degradation - impacts on a fragile and vulnerable environment - is the main factor making the tourist spaces of the Mediterranean Basin less competitive. The processes that operate in the Mediterranean as a whole are very diverse, but we could classify them into large two spatial groups:

Emerging New Spaces:
    Natural spaces and protected spaces, highly vulnerable to the pressure derived from the tourist industry in the Mediterranean Basin as a whole.
    Tourist nuclei with an offer integrated within the pre-existing urban layout, which do not show major alterations in their natural and cultural heritage.
    Tourist nuclei in a process of restructuring that offer new products integrated in the natural, social and cultural environment.

Traditional Spaces:
    Expanding tourist nuclei, based on consuming the surrounding area, as a support for expansionist economic policies, and leading to an increasingly artificial environment.
    Mature tourist nuclei, with a long tradition of tourism and high levels of environmental saturation. Since the first Mediterranean Action Plan was approved in 1975, there has been an increase in the initiatives that seek to prevent the speculative growth of tourism and propose alternative formulas, to make the practise of tourism compatible with economic development and the conservation of natural and cultural resources. The most important initiatives of this type are the European Union's Environment Program V, Agenda MED 21 and the Mediterranean Action Plan of the United Nations Environment Program (MAP-UNEP).
    The Second Mediterranean Action Plan (Barcelona 1995) made the following proposals for tourist development:

A) To evaluate, supervise and assess tourist activities and their environmental impact, using (among other things) the appropriate and relevant indicators.

B) To promote regional and international cooperation in order to encourage environmentally friendly tourism that is compatible with sustainable development.

C) To monitor and protect natural, cultural and human resources, and to undertake regular assessments of the environmental impact and of the carrying capacity.

D) To carry out information and awareness campaigns among the interested agents, intended, among other purposes, to  increase the awareness of the tourists so that they will adopt an environment-friendly form of tourism.

    Tourism can be considered as an instrument that increases the value of natural or cultural resources or as an instrument leading to the ruin of the environmental resources.The mass tourism model, which has characterized tourist flows since the 1950s, is a clearly unsustainable model, for at least four reasons:

1. It has not considered the importance of the conservation of the natural systems or of the rational use of natural resources as a value.

2. It has emphasized growth over the qualitative aspects of growth.

3. It has distributed the benefits of development very unfairly.

4. It has not included the surrounding area and its special features within the tourist offer, thus favouring homogenization and depersonalization.
 
    It can be concluded that tourism models in the Mediterranean must be encouraged to restructure and aim for criteria of sustainability. Rather than an extensive model based on economic growth and the predatory use of natural resources, what is needed is a model of tourism that is sustainable. Sustainable tourism means, the tourism that combines tourist development with respect for and preservation of natural, cultural and social resources. Sustainable tourism favours the reduction of tensions between the tourism industry, the visitors, the host communities and the environment.
Sustainable tourism is a tourism that is:

- Long-lasting (economically viable in the long-term, planned and well managed, which implies avoidance of mass tourism and a low impact).

- Environment friendly (adapted to the carrying capacity of the natural and cultural spaces, minimizing seasonal effects)

- Diversified (in relation to the hinterland, adapted to the site's personality, based on local enterprises and avoiding total dedication to tourism)

- Participatory (with the participation of the local towns and villages)

    As a conclusion, it is essential for the different agents to genuinely want to cooperate and to assume, in their daily life, the responsibilities relating to sustainable development, and that it is necessary to raise the population's awareness and their commitment to seek solutions to the environmental problems of the Mediterranean coastline, so that they can take responsibility for themselves and play an active role in the present and future. In fact, as public have become more aware of not only the environment, but also the different aspects of life like the rich historical background of the countries in the Mediterranean Region, and as the people have become bored of just going to seaside, swim and sunbath all the day, they have started to demand for alternative ways to entertain and gain knowledge. And this project is mainly for the purpose of giving the people creative and different solutions for their interests and desires via connecting the Mediterranean societies.