Not surprisingly, the negative impact of tourism on the
physical environment has appeared, following the phase
of more or less uncontrolled development during the
1980s. In the absence of pro-active, comprehensive and
integrated planning approaches, development has
concentrated in a spatially unbalanced manner. It is
interesting to note that successive governments have encouraged
this spatial concentration by deliberately channelling
generous tourism incentives to pre-determined
tourism regions, tourism areas and tourism centres. Unbalanced
and geographical concentration of tourism development
has created environmental problems in various
forms at di!erent local tourist destinations.