Tourism Trend Setters – Attractions That Create Vacation Memories and Revenue

Global tourism is getting back on track and all indications are showing a return to vacation night stays at beachfront hotels and fractional ownership around the world. Once again the industry is grappling with the age old questions of consumer engagement and vacation memory creation branded to resort properties.

Artificial resort reef design

“It’s a no brainer for us,” says Dave Taylor Director of Development at Reef Worlds, an L.A based underwater design and development company.

“There’s an estimated 500,000 square miles of accessible ocean front sitting right off main stream hotel chains and fractional ownership resorts  that no one has built any engagement with. The resorts who own these spaces still consider the high tide mark their responsibility. The end result are waterfront spaces that no one wants to snorkel on, or dive on, worse yet spaces that wildlife, (the reason people engage with the water), are leaving because of environmental neglect.”

Dave Taylors design and build team are avid water users and have traveled extensively around the world to discover the state of resort waterfronts in 2012 and their report was not pretty. “We found old tires, garbage, sand bottoms, broken coral, and wildlife that was barely hanging on. In short not a place you would want to grab a snorkel kit and go explore and these were 5 Star developments and time share properties .”

Reef Worlds solution is simple. Take the concept of an artificial reef, typically rock tailings, rip rap, and or concrete shapes that had no tourism value and fundamentally redesign the concept to create entire worlds underwater for tourism and wildlife. Reef Worlds harnesses 5000 years of human design elements with a touch of Hollywood magic to deliver underwater experiential sites that capture and hold mass tourism within a resort developments own footprint while creating a haven for regional wildlife.

They are also designed as revenue generators from the day they are placed with on site.

Tourism Revenue 101

“Snorkel rentals have some compelling numbers behind them. A typical snorkel set rents for $20-30USD a day, and at just 100 sets a day you’re looking at close to a million dollars in revenue generation for the resort. Add to that habitat creation with the increase of bio mass and colorful fish to your waterfront. But the Holy Grail of Reef Worlds are the newly branded vacation memories for your clients and their entire family in a way that is practically maintenance free. Try getting all that from a land based water park.”

Reef Worlds is in design and build stage with several 20 acre waterfront sites with site openings in tandem with new developments at the end of 2014 and 2015.

“We’re breaking every tourism paradigm there is right now with Reef Worlds. Tourism is coming back in a big way and today’s client is not the same one we saw in 2007, they are networked, social media savvy, and want experiential adventures they can share easily with friends. They also want a return to wildlife engagement and that’s something we’re helping with one unique and iconic underwater site at a time.”

If You Build It

Habitat creation is important for regional wildlife. Many resorts worldwide are suffering from extensive habitat loss underwater. Reef Worlds builds the kind of large structures that attract soft coral growth, herbivorous fish, and schooling fish species. Reef Worlds design teams also employ marine biologists and fish ecologists to design underwater worlds that also act as instant habitat creation.

“The next decade will be all about who has the ability to create an emotional connection with their client base. After all, one beach is the same as the next beach and you can only add so many swimming pools and land based attractions before you start running out of space. Our message is simple, start building underwater and discover how easy it is re-engage your clients and get them to use social media to spread the word about your resorts.”

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. 

For more information about Reef Worlds:

Visit their website www.reefworlds.com
Call 323.863.5085
Send an email to developer@reefworlds.com

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

Concrete coastlines: it’s time to tackle our marine ‘urban sprawl’

How would you feel if half of Sydney’s beaches were replaced with concrete walls? Unfortunately, this scenario is already common in urban estuaries around the world.

According to our research, published this month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, some estuaries in Australia, the United States and Europe have had more than 50% of their natural coastline modified with artificial structures.

This “marine urbanisation” – including foreshore developments, port facilities, marinas and even offshore energy platforms – is most widespread in Europe where over 9,000 marinas and more than 200 offshore energy installations are operational. Australia and the United States are catching up with the Bass Strait a focus for oil and gas platforms, and the Gulf of Mexico supporting some 2,000 oil and gas installations.

Thankfully, there are lessons we can learn from land-based sustainable architecture that will help us save our seas from the effects of all this concrete.

The coastal concrete jungle

You have probably noticed the amount of concrete and other building materials that have begun to encroach on many of our shorelines, amid the growing demand for coastal urban development.

Not even the deep ocean, generally considered a haven for marine organisms, is safe, with a steady increase in the construction of offshore energy infrastructure such as platforms for oil and gas exploration.

The reality is that urban sprawl is no longer just a land-based problem. Developments are spreading out into the oceans, creating tangles of structures beneath the water’s surface. Seawalls, breakwaters and boating infrastructure such as marinas are becoming increasingly conspicuous in the marine environment.

We build concrete walls to protect our coasts from nature’s forces. We add wooden pylons and floating structures to support a burgeoning shipping industry. Mountains of underwater scaffolding support a growing offshore energy and resource sector. There are more than 7500 offshore rigs worldwide and this number is growing rapidly, but at the same time more than 6500 rigs are expected to require decommissioning by 2025. Hence we are dealing with a double edge sword of how to manage impacts from new installations and how to minimise the disturbance associated with removal of these enormous structures.

And we are finding more novel ways to build into the sea, such as entire artificial islands built in Dubai and the (not so) futuristic underwater hotels proposed for Fiji and the Great Barrier Reef.

Hard problems

These artificial structures present a range of ecological problems, including loss of native species diversity and the spread of introduced species. Furthermore, the defences to coastal shores that these structures, such as groynes and seawalls, are meant to provide could actually be causing more bad than good.

Indiscriminate construction within urban seascapes is, among other things, responsible for the loss and degradation of important habitats such as sediments, seagrasses, mangroves and wetlands. In the UK, proposed offshore wind energy developments will replace an area of soft sediment habitat close to the size of Melbourne. These habitats are not only highly productive, supporting a variety of species, including some economically important, but some provide natural protection for the coastal zone against storms and waves.

Eco-engineering the ocean

Fortunately, not everything is bad news. The silver lining is that urban seascapes are still a relatively new phenomenon and we can learn from the pitfalls of urban land-based developments.

More alternative methods have been used to armour our coastal zones against climate change. These include soft engineering approaches e.g. managed realignment, which involves the removal of hard defence structures and restoration of natural coastal vegetation, and beach replenishment where sand is deposited on beaches to build up the surf zone and dune protection. Where these approaches are not possible then increasingly we need to build ecologically sensitive artificial structures.

Combining ecological principles with engineering designs is probably the most promising solution for the current urban sprawl, with terms such as green or eco-engineering being more frequently used (and applied) to urban seascapes. Practices of eco-engineering are driving innovative strategies on how to manage coastal development, and increasingly, things are being built “with nature” instead of “against nature”, with encouraging results.

Artificial structures, where they are needed, can and should be built in a more ecologically friendly way. Currently, most artificial structures in the marine environment are built for a single purpose, such as coastal protection, tourism, energy or food production. We suggest that multipurpose structures should be built instead. Why can’t offshore oil and gas platforms serve as aquaculture areas or even diving spots – they tend to attract plenty of fish.

Similarly, we can build seawalls and breakwaters in ways that not only help to protect the local area but are also designed to avoid environmental impacts. Why not transfer the urban concept of “green roofs” to the sea, by seeding artificial structures with key desired and/or threatened species. Breakwaters in the Adriatic Sea have been successfully “seeded” with the seaweed Cystoseira barbataand oyster reef restoration efforts can be applied to new foreshore developments. Seeding of key species can also improve water quality through the absorption or removal of contaminants.

Natural seascapes

Thankfully, there are now several global initiatives that try to solve, or at least mitigate, the many problems caused by underwater urbanisation. The Nature Conservancy’s Southern Seascapes project aims to restore coastal estuaries that are home to shellfish and seagrass, whereas the Sydney-based World Harbour Project is working to make the world’s urban ports and harbours more sustainable. Projects such as these will provide the basic research needed to progress eco-engineering designs on a large scale.

Many of the world’s major cities – including Sydney, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, and Qingdao – are on the coast or in large estuaries. However, eco-engineering remains under-utilised in the management of marine urban sprawl.

This is partly due to the lack of policy and incentives driving ecologically sustainable development below the waterline. Europe leads the way in strategies to promote green infrastructure through policy.

The rest of the world needs to catch up before concepts such as underwater cities escape the realms of science fiction.

Complete story here.

Underwater Cultural Heritage at Risk: Managing Natural and Human Impacts

One of the better underwater tourism and cultural heritage books we have read in a long while. The download is free, hope you enjoy it.

With over 30 authors,the book canvasses a wide range of underwater cultural heritage sites from around the world. These include shipwrecks, fish traps and inundated offshore deposits in Asia, South America, the Pacific, North America, South Africa and Europe. The environments in which they are set range from tidal zones to the extreme depths of international oceanic waters.

In this book, heritage managers from government and private organisations share a wealth of experience in managing natural and human threats to these sites. Examples of natural threats include coping with the effects of marine borers, current and surge as well as metal corrosion. Risks arising from human activities are also addressed.

These include direct impacts (such as those related to diving on wrecks as well as commercial salvage) and indirect impacts associated with development projects (including construction of harbour facilities and dredging programs).

The solutions are varied, imaginative and effective.They highlight the real opportunities that exist for governments and organisations faced with similar challenges and make this publication an invaluable reference work.

Free download of the full text of the book - link here

Labor to spend $100 million on reef?

Big Question of The Day - How does a government spent $100 million dollars protecting a reef?

OPPOSITION Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk made the announcement on Green Island, off the Cairns coast, on Wednesday after taking a reef tour in a glass bottom boat alongside her environment spokeswoman Jackie Trad.

Ms Palaszczuk said a "high-level taskforce" would provide recommendations to government to determine how best to spend the $100 million over five years. The taskforce will have several targets, including reducing nitrogen run off by up to 80 per cent in key catchment areas by 2025. But Ms Trad would not be drawn on what concrete initiatives the $100 million would be spent on and whether the taskforce's targets would be legislated.

"We will make that decision after we listen to the evidence, after we listen to the experts," Ms Trad said. "Unlike (Premier) Campbell Newman who has picked a fight with everybody in our community ... (and) who doesn't believe in the science of climate change."

Ms Palaszczuk says it's too early to detail exactly what the money will be spent on because it was just the start of Labor's reef plan. She says Labor will "absolutely" prioritize addressing debt and reveal its long-awaited fiscal strategy on Friday, 15 days before the state poll.

Full story here. 

Artificial reefs key for future of Mideast tourism

The Future World Summit, being held in Dubai, UAE, in December will focus on the growing importance of underwater projects in the Middle Eastern tourism market.

Recent developments in artificial reefs and other underwater attractions are set to become an important part of the Middle Eastern travel and tourism market, as countries in the region begin to get serious about entering the $3 billion dive and snorkel marketplace.

“Reef Worlds addresses a critical problem cities, such as Dubai, have with the lack of water-based tourism or footprint in the global dive and snorkel marketplace. In the waters in and around Dubai there are few, if any, underwater engagement points,” said Patric Douglas, Reef World’s CEO.

“Resort developers along Dubai's expanding coastline are now realising that with the creation of Dynamic Reefs, unique sites that are designed for habitat and tourism, they can increase revenues, client satisfaction and give a much needed boost to degraded regional habitats,” he added.

Douglas will be involved in the Future Tourism Summit which will be held in Dubai on December 9 and 10.

At the event, he will also update delegates on the development of the recently announced The Pearl of Dubai project. Design work has now been completed on what will be the world’s largest underwater theme park, with the five-acre park modelled after the mythical lost city of Atlantis and inspired by the look of recent Hollywood films.

In addition to its Dubai development, Reef Worlds has also received interest for similar projects in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while Oman and Bahrain have already made huge investments into artificial reefs.

Story here.

Reef Worlds dives deep into Caribbean

Reef Worlds Inc., the leading underwater tourism development firm in the U.S., is introducing its new experiential Underwater Worlds for the Caribbean at all inclusive resorts with a new $4.5 million dollar development budget.

The program is designed to help resorts in the Caribbean grow market share, increase customer satisfaction, and develop a competitive edge through unique, exciting, and interactive underwater worlds designed for the environment and for tourism. These underwater sites are featured on a resorts own footprint at no upfront cost to the resort.

A recent study showed that 70% of consumers felt more positive about a resort after participating in an experiential event. For time-share and fractional ownership properties having the ability to offer new and innovative on site experiences translates into stronger resort sales.

“We understand that most resorts do not have a development budget in place to design and build large scale underwater habitats for wildlife that look and feel like lost civilizations so we decided to partner with a few select resorts and build these sites for them. Resort experiential offerings come in many shapes and sizes and waters ports activities are high on consumer’s to-do lists. We created something for everyone that takes experiencing the ocean environment to new heights," said Mike Wallace, director of development at Reef Worlds Inc.

By providing underwater habitat creation for regional wildlife in an accessible environment, Reef Worlds (www.reefworlds.com) creates extraordinary and memorable guest experiences. Participants enjoy snorkeling and scuba diving on lost cities, surrounded by new corals, colorful tropical fish, and a completely reinvigorated waterfront for the resort property.

Reef Worlds is in the process of partnering with select resorts and is actively seeking additional dynamic resort partnerships with large chain resorts at this time.

Source -  Caribbean Business
http://vimeo.com/49814173

Artificial Reefs Working in AU

Artificial Reefs are also known as Dynamic Reefs when applied to resort development waterfronts and tourism.

At Reef Worlds we have been leading the Dynamic Reef Revolution.

ARTIFICIAL reefs at Quindalup, near Dunsborough were already working, according to the Minister for fisheries Troy Buswell.

He said fish had been seen in good numbers in and around them since they were installed last month.

He officially opened the reefs, which cost $2.38 million, at the Quindalup boat ramp today.
Mr Buswell said the reefs would enhance fishing in the area and the reefs were designed to increase fish stocks in Geographe Bay.

“These reefs are already attracting fish and are expected to increase the population of numerous species,” he said.

The artificial reefs have the support of Recfishwest. Its chief executive Dr Andre Rowland said he was pleased to see funding from recreational fishing licences contribute to the project, which had already shown positive results for the fishing community.

For more see next Wednesday’s Busselton-Dunsborough Mail.

Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association (MBARA)

Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association (MBARA)

AFTCO is a proud supporter of the Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association. The MBARA was formed in January of 1997 and has since deployed over 200 artificial reefs. The mission of the MBARA is the conservation and environmental improvement of natural and artificial marine reef systems in the Gulf of Mexico near Mexico Beach, Florida.

Reef Building

The MBARA works hard to construct artificial reef habitat to enhance sustainable fisheries in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The MBARA set a milestone of establishing 1000 patch reefs, or small artificial reef habitats in the waters off Mexico Beach, Florida. The MBARA works closely with the City of Mexico Beach, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commision, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to achieve this goal.

Article here