The Case of Greek Ports

The future of tourism development is largely dependent on the natural environment and its preservation (Hall and Lew in Sustainable tourism: a geographical perspective. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1998). Thus environment is not only an important foundation for tourism sustainable development, but it can also be the foundation for unique attractions for tourists (Zi in Tourism Management 46:11–19, 2015). Tourism by its very nature is a resource dependent industry and some commentators argue that sustainable tourism is unachievable given the industry’s ability to pollute and consume resources (Johnson in Marine Policy 26(4):261–270, 2002). This view has been summarized as follows: “Tourism contains the seed of its own destruction; tourism can kill tourism, destroying the very environmental attractions which visitors come to a location to experience” (Glasson et al. Towards visitor impact management: visitor impacts, carrying capacity and management responses in Europe’s historic towns and cities (urban and regional planning and development). Avebury, Surrey, 1995). The tourism industry is of great importance for Greece and cruising is considered as a major part of it. The estimation of detailed NOx, SO2 and PM2.5 emissions to air due to cruise ships approaching Greek ports is presented in this chapter. The methodological approach is based on detailed technical data and records every cruise ship movement in the studied ports for the year 2013 in order to estimate air emissions and their anticipated social costs. The emissions were analyzed in terms of gas species, seasonality and activity.