Dr. Klaus J Meyer-Arendt

The north coast of the Mexican state of Yucatán, centered on the port of Progreso, has been substantially altered by humans over the past century or so. The barrier lagoon complex, naturally fronted by long straight beaches, has been significantly altered by port and harbor improvements and also summer-home construction along the beachfront. As the shoreline has retreated because of both natural and human causes, structures such as groins and seawalls were built to combat this transgression of the sea. Hurricanes and winter storms have accelerated and geographically extended the volume and range of human modification of the shoreline. Today, a 20-km-long coastal reach can no longer be considered “natural.”

In North America, the subdisciplines of recreation geography, tourism geography, and sport geography (RTS) are alive and well. From their beginnings as serious research topics in the 1930s (cf. Mitchell and Smith 1989), the RTS subfields have gradually emerged as legitimate and significant areas of study within North American geography. Among the three subdisciplines, tourism geography has experienced the greatest growth in recent years, and in view of the role of tourism in the world economy, that growth trend is expected to continue. This chapter presents an overview of research in recreation geography, tourism geography, and sport geography by North American geographers since 1988. Research conducted prior to that date was summarized in Mitchell and Smith’s (1989) chapter in the first volume of Geography of America (Gaile and Willmott 1989), and readers are urged to consult that reference. An excellent summary of themes in RTS research from a global perspective is provided by Hall and Page (1999). According to a traditional, dualistic Western definition, all time can be divided into two categories: work and leisure. Leisure, or non-work time, is filled with various activities (or “non-activities”) such as watching television, playing games, and socializing. Whereas the study of many leisure activities falls within the domains of psychology, physical education, and sociology, most leisure activities also lend themselves to geographic analysis. This is where the origins of RTS geography lie. Tourism and recreation activities exhibit distinct place, time, distance, and activity patterns. For example, tourism is typically more passive and entails more distant and extended travel than does most recreation. Sport is a form of recreation that includes both active participation and passive spectator activities. Leisure studies is a broad and multidisciplinary research area that encompasses most of the RTS literature, and that has engendered its own body of literature that geographers have contributed to. However, the terms “leisure geography” or “geography of leisure” never came into common use among North American geographers. Mitchell and Smith (1989) noted that the term “recreation geography” was coined in 1954, and up through the 1970s it seemed best to reflect the predominant interests of North American geographers studying leisure activities.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast has been a tourist destination since prior to Mississippi being admitted into the United States of America. The popularity of the Coast for tourism has waxed and waned over the years in response to economic cycles, hurricanes, and alternative trendy destinations. In the 1990s, a new wave of tourism in the form of legalized casino gambling swept the state, especially the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In late 1998, there were eleven operating casinos on the Coast and several more under construction. The development of the casino industry has not been without controversy in the coastal counties, and the impacts have been mixed. Economically, there has been a rejuvenation as new jobs were created and the demand for housing increased tremendously. In terms of environmental impacts- highway traffic, hurricane evacuation planning, and socio-cultural impacts-casino development has borne a cost. Traditional patterns of tourism have been altered, and no comprehensive land-use analysis of future casino development exists. This chapter is written to: 1) provide a brief background of gambling on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 2) discuss the Mississippi Gaming Control Act of 1990, 3) present a chronology of casino development, 4) evaluate the economic impacts, 5) assess how casino development has altered historic patterns of tourism development, and 6) examine some of the implications for urban planning and coastal management.

Conceptual models of resort evolution have been used to document pat-terns of tourist flows, social and economic impacts, and changes in resort morphology. Tourism/environment relationships are often perceived as being linear, with greater levels of tourism development correlated to greater negative environmental impacts. Documentation of Gulf of Mexico coastal resort evolution by application of a resort cycle model reveals a more complex human-environment relationship. Minimal geomorphic disturbance characterises initial tourism 'exploration', although a subsequent 'rapid development' stage is usually accompanied by the greatest negative impacts upon the dunes and shore zone. During more advanced stages of the resort cycle, accurate perceptions of environmental degradation lead to increasing efforts at environmental preservation, e.g. shoreline armouring, beach nourishment, dune stabilisation, etc. However, because of prevailing adverse physical parameters as well as previous human-induced environmental degradation, these efforts are usually costly and rarely successful. Resort cycle analyses are useful in understanding both the evolution of Gulf of Mexico resorts and also the corollary geomorphic and related environmental impacts. Such analyses for forecasting evolutionary trends and geomorphic impacts are greatest at sites of 'spontaneous' unregulated tourism development, such as in the lesser developed countries.

Coastal resorts around the Gulf of Mexico exhibit great variability in urban morphology. Although physical geography may partly explain regional variations, cultural-historical factors are of greater importance. Changes in urban morphologies may be correlated with development
stages in conceptual models of resort evolution. Such models serve to explain historical trends, present variations, and future development conflicts.