Tourism development challenges on the Dead Sea shore

Abstract

Abstract:The Dead Sea along with Jerusalem belongs to one of the most well-known spots visited by tourists in Israel. Because of many factors, such as the water level of the Dead Sea at a depth of 430 m b.s.l. (in 2015), average salinity of 26%, hot springs and many healing salts located there, it is a unique tourist attraction on a global level. Its attractiveness is heightened by its proximity to other sites of interest , such as the Jewish fortress at Masada, Jericho, Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, as well as Petra, Madaba and Al-Karak on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. High salinity and a microclimate create perfect conditions for the development of health resorts and medical tourism. Extracting healing salts from its waters for the needs of the chemical industry is important for both the economy and medical tourism. However, as a consequence of the agricultural and urban use of the waters of the River Jordan, which flows into the Dead Sea, a persistent decrease in the lake water level has been observed over the last century. This has created a number of economic and political issues. The problems which still have to be resolved are associated with the Red Sea-Dead Sea Conduit (Canal), the division of Jordan's water resources, conservation of the unique reservoir of the Dead Sea and the threat of hindering the development of tourism within the region. The presentation of these issues is the main aim of this research paper. The study is based on the analysis of changes in tourism flows, results of research studies and the prognosis of changes in the water level of the Dead Sea. It presents an assessment of the effects of this phenomenon on the tourist economy. At the current level of tourism flows within the region, the tourist capacity of local beaches will be exceeded in areas where the most popular tourist resorts are located. Increased expenditure on development of tourism infrastructure in the coastal zone can also be observed. The predicted decreasing water level will result in further modifications and expansion of tourism infrastructure, decreased accessibility to the coastline for tourists, increased costs of visiting and may lead to an ecological disaster.

Landscape and Limnological Research of Lake Systems of the Plain Areas of the Northeastern Borderlands of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Assessment of Their Recreational Capacity

“…Lebyazhye 3 3 4 5 3 5 2 5 2 5 37 Yakush 2 1 3 2 3 4 2 5 1 1 24 Semilovo 1 1 2 3 4 4 2 1 1 1 20 Ulken-Zharma 1 2 2 5 2 3 1 3 1 2 22 L. Tarangul 3 3 4 5 4 5 2 5 3 5 39 Siltyteniz 1 1 2 1 3 1 5 1 1 1 17 L. Tavolzhan 1 1 2 1 3 1 5 1 1 1 17 The combination of aquatic and forest-steppe geosystems allows for organizing a number of types of recreational activities: beach swimming, hiking and sightseeing recreation, boating, water skiing, hunting for wetland game, fishing, picking berries, mushrooms, useful plants, etc. The development of health resorts is possible on the base of salt lakes and deposits of therapeutic mud, similar to the health resort at the Dear Sea (Wendt, 2016). For the researched lakes, the main season of tourist and recreational activities is the summer period of the year, but in winter skiing, sledding, hunting, ice fishing and other types of recreation are possible here.…”

Transport Accessibility of the Lake Ecosystems in the North Kazakhstan Region as a Factor of Tourism Development

“…Tourism is an important sector of the economy of each country (Zhakupov et al, 2015), and its importance is also appreciated in Kazakhstan (Zhidkoblinova, 2013;Ziyadin and Takhaeva, 2014;Syzdykbayeva et al, 2015), a country with a great potential of natural values, which include lake ecosystems of the North Kazakhstan region. Tourism, and especially sustainable tourism (Aimagambetov et al, 2018) and agritourism (Tleubayeva, 2018), balneotourism (Wendt, 2016), slow tourism (cittaslow) (Lewandowska et al, 2019) and a new techlogies as VR in tourism and economy (Ziyadin et al, 2014;Watkins et al, 2018;Korinth et al, 2019;Ziyadin et al, 2019a;2019b;Bógdał-Brzezińska, 2020) play an important role as a perspective direction of development of its economy. However, its development still faces a number of barriers (Aliaskarov et al, 2017), among which transport, which is of key importance for the development of tourism (Bazarbekova et al, 2018), unfortunately holds a high position.…”

Divers risk accelerated fatigue and core temperature rise during fully-immersed exercise in warmer water temperature extremes

“…Tourists scuba dive in natural hot springs such as the Homestead Crater in Utah where water temperature is approximately 35°C [8]. The Dead Sea is frequently visited by both researchers [9] and tourists [10] and has sea surface temperatures that have historically ranged between 33-36°C during the summer months [11]. Furthermore, daytime sea surface temperatures in CONTACT Adam W. Potter adam.w.potter.civ@mail.mil the Dead Sea were shown to have increased by 0.6°C •decade −1 over the period of 2000-2016 [12].…”