Waterfront Resorts Reborn: Discovering Dynamic Reefs and Revenue

It’s an open secret in the waterfront resort community. For the past 40 years resorts have considered little beyond the high tide mark. With the help of a unique environmental design team they are rediscovering acres of property, client engagement, and new sources of revenue.

Reef Worlds is my Los Angeles based Dynamic Reef Development Company, and we have recently discovered 500,000 square miles of premium resort development space sitting in front of some of the top luxury resorts on the planet.

After reviewing the state of resort waterfronts around the Caribbean we discovered 5 star properties with half star waterfronts, zones beyond the high tide mark where natural reefs, colorful fish, and habitat were essentially gone, replaced with some old tires, turtle grass, and dead coral and it is a global phenomenon.

Over the past 40 years while waterfront resorts have focused on land based amenities and water parks, the industry assumed the ocean, “would take care of itself.” Resort revenue areas that once attracted snorkelers and divers to the region would always be healthy and vibrant.

That’s just not the case, complex environments need to be looked after and tended to, the fact is the current state of waterfronts has never been worse and that affects the resort bottom line. People want to snorkel; they want to engage with the oceans and ocean wildlife and some of the most successful revenue building water programs involve wildlife like Stingray City in the Caymans for example. Today’s travelers want to create their own unique vacation content and share it via social media with their networks; no one wants to share images of an old tire underwater.

Reef Worlds Dynamic Reef teams survey resort waterfronts and wildlife potential and create made to order Dynamic Reef environments, harnessing 5000 years of iconic design elements create entire worlds underwater for snorkelers and divers to explore.

The fact is most resorts have at least 10-20 acres of usable space in front of their properties. Right now these spaces generate no revenue; they do nothing for social media, branding, or the regional environment. Now imagine these same spaces with carefully designed snorkel trails, environmentally safe habitat creation, and the look and feel of a Lost World to be discovered?

Dynamic Reefs vs Artificial Reefs

Dynamic Reefs allow waterfront resorts and developments to synergistically take design elements and branding from their property and place it in the oceans. Unlike artificial reefs, Dynamic Reefs focus on both the environment and tourism to create a conscious blend of revenue generation and environmental support. No two waterfront spaces are the same so the design and build must suit both regional wildlife and tourism needs.

This is how resorts will tackle the complex issues facing them over the next decade, by looking at their entire resort footprint and maximizing every aspect in a sustainable manner. At Reef Worlds we know what the underwater environment can look like and how habitat creation is good for not only colorful fish and corals, but increased tourism and engagement.”

Reef Worlds design teams imagine a world where miles of resorts coastlines around the world are transformed by Dynamic Reefs into mini marine protected areas that also serve tourism to create a better environment for future generations.

Reef Worlds help waterfront properties worldwide enhance their near shore waters, the ones closest to beach fronts with interactive and exciting man made designs elements placed underwater. Our vision is to create entire worlds underwater that inspire and are iconic. Reef Worlds are carefully placed in areas where resorts and developments have sand or grass bed bottoms that currently hold little interest to resort guests.

Our underwater sites are 100% neutral and do not harm the environment, rather they provide instant habitat for a wide variety of fish and coral life to begin near shore propagation. They can also be used as discreet set aside or mini marine protected areas capturing high volume tourism traffic while protecting natural reefs nearby.

About Reef Worlds

At the intersection of art, science, and the environment is Reef Worlds. When a unique team of film and television designers, dive site developers, and marine biologists got together they dreamt of a better way to experience the undersea realm. 

The result was Reef Worlds.

Visit us at www.reefworlds.com

Call 323.863.5085

Send an email developer@reefworlds.com

Artificial Reef Tourism Paper - Fascinating!

Underwater LED art garden installation

Deploying artificial reefs on the seabed has become popular in diving management. This practice has been advocated as a means towards meeting both ecological concerns and recreational divers’ demands for diversification and themed experiences.

Nevertheless, the perceptions of the user community itself – the scuba divers – regarding the establishment of artificial reefs have received only limited attention in the literature.

Their views on critical issues concerning artificial reefs remain, as a result, fairly vague and speculative. The aim of the current paper is to bridge this gap in the literature by presenting the results of a study exploring divers’ attitudes and preferences with regards to the plan for a new artificial reef along the northern shore of the Red Sea in Eilat, Israel.

The findings indicate that the potential integration of this artificial reef was well perceived by the divers, regarding its contribution both to the diving experience and to the natural environment.

The divers also expressed their preference for large objects with a themed structure as artificial reefs, such as naval ships and airplanes, rather than more generic and amorphous forms, such as concrete blocks or pipes.

Overall, the study points toward the marketing potential of developing mass marine ecotourism through the deployment of artificial reefs at diving sites, as well as the prospect of promoting soft ecotourism in modified marine environments.

Complete paper here.

Symbiodinium Thermophilum: Hot Reef Savior?

Hot reefs and even hotter megafauna

Researchers from the University of Southampton and the New York University Abu Dhabi identified the symbiotic algae in corals from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the world's warmest coral reef habitat. 

"We found that commonly applied molecular methods did not give enough resolution to distinguish the dominant symbionts of Gulf corals from those in other parts of the world's oceans," explains Professor Jörg Wiedenmann, Professor of Biological Oceanography and Head of the Coral Reef Laboratory at the University of Southampton. "However, when analyzed by alternative molecular biological approaches, we found pronounced differences that set this heat tolerant species clearly aside. We named it Symbiodinium thermophilum in reference to its ability to survive unusually high temperatures."

"Understanding how corals survive under the extreme temperatures in the Gulf will give us important insights into the ability of reef corals to handle the heat stress, which is threatening their survival in the oceans that are warming up in response to climate change," explains Wiedenmann. "We monitored the symbiotic partnership over several seasons to ensure that this association was stable through a range of thermal conditions," comments Professor John Burt from the New York University Abu Dhabi. "We can confirm that this new type of alga is the year-round prevalent symbiont across several dominant coral species from the Abu Dhabi coast of the United Arab Emirates.

"It gives hope to find that corals have more ways to adjust to stressful environmental conditions than we had previously thought," adds Professor Wiedenmann. "However, it is not only heat that troubles coral reefs. Pollution and nutrient enrichment, overfishing and coastal development also represent severe threats to their survival. Only if we manage to reduce these different forms of stress will corals be able to benefit from their capacity to adjust to climate change." 

Article here. 

Coral Reef Armageddon Watch 2015

2015 is poised to be the worst coral bleaching event in recent memory.

The red bits on this NOAA 2015 map are warming waters, the really red bits are where the trouble for coral reefs begin.

Healthy reefs support local and global economies. Through the tourism industry and fisheries, coral reefs generate billions of dollars and millions of jobs in more than 100 countries around the world.

Studies show that on average, countries with coral reef industries derive more than half of their gross national product from them. A good example can be found in Bonaire, a small Caribbean island. Bonaire earns about USD $23 million annually from coral reef activities, yet managing its marine park costs less than $1 million per year (Talbot F., and C. Wilkinson, 2001, Coral Reefs, Mangroves and Seagrasses: A Sourcebook for Managers).

The variety of marine life and protected beaches supported by coral reefs provide an inviting setting for sightseers, sunbathers, snorkelers, and scuba divers and huge economic benefits to communities. A study conducted in 2002 estimated the value of coral reefs at $10 billion, with direct economic benefits of $360 million per year (Cesar and van Beukering, 2004). For residents of coral reef areas who depend on income from tourism, reef destruction creates a significant loss of employment in the tourism, marine recreation, and sport fishing industries.

Warmer water temperatures can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead.

Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality. In 2005, the U.S. lost half of its coral reefs in the Caribbean in one year due to a massive bleaching event.

Most of those regions have failed to recover completely.

The warm waters centered around the northern Antilles near the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico expanded southward. Comparison of satellite data from the previous 20 years confirmed that thermal stress from the 2005 event was greater than the previous 20 years combined.

Over in Fiji at Beqa Adventure Divers a small but dedicated team is monitoring the health of their reefs and sanctuary region. BAD has been at the forefront a private marine conservation partnerships in the region for the past decade with an impressive list of accomplishments and accolades to their credit.

We will be following their small piece of Pacific closely for first person reports as the waters warm.