Global economic impact of scuba dive tourism

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Schuhbauer, Anna;Favoretto, Fabio;Wang, Terrance;Aburto-Oropeza, Octavio;Sala, Enric;Millage, Katherine D.;Cabral, Reniel B.;Sumaila, U. Rashid;Hsu, Astrid;Lucrezi, Serena;Tighsazzadeh, Mohammad Nasir;Plascencia de La Cruz, Marisol;Cisneros-Montemayor, Andrés M.
Reniel Cabral
Abstract

Marine ecotourism is increasingly popular and important for local economies, but its aggregated benefits to the global ocean economy are little known and often overlooked in policy discussions. Here, we present a first estimate of the global economic impact of scuba diving based on an online survey of scuba dive operators across the world. We estimate the global annual revenue of scuba diving (direct diving expenditure) at between 0.9 and 3.2 billion USD per year and a broader economic impact (direct and indirect expenditure) at between 8.5 and 20.4 billion USD per year. Marine ecotourism is one of the most promising ocean sectors that can incentivize local sustainable economies, and with 9–14 million marine diving tourists worldwide supporting up to 124,000 jobs, the scuba diving sector could be at the forefront of transformative change for local and global ocean sustainability.

Journal

Cell Reports Sustainability

Publication Name

Cell Reports Sustainability

Volume

2

ISBN/ISSN

2949-7906

Edition

N/A

Issue

7

Pages Count

14

Location

N/A

Publisher

Cell Press

Publisher Url

N/A

Publisher Location

N/A

Publish Date

N/A

Url

N/A

Date

N/A

EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.1016/j.crsus.2025.100435