The beauty of the earth is not restricted to what we see on land. Thousands of voyagers have sought whatever means were available to explore the wonders beneath the waves. Scuba diving has made it possible for everyone to at least take a peep into the underwater realm, where nature has created masterpieces of sculpture and color. Large expensively laden ships have been built to carry their wealthy passengers to distant and not so distant ports of call. The likes of Titanic, Lusitania, Andrea-Doria, and others still command imaginative longings in those who can counter the ultimate cost to visit in person, the memorial that is all that remains of ships destroyed and sunk by an act of war or nature. Then there are those who desire a unique status among tourists. They take the surface while entrepreneurs and adventurers go below to explore the world of water. They are the creators of deep-sea tourism.
With major advancements in technology, people are getting attracted to weirder things. Some of them include space tourism, travel to Antarctica, the center of the earth, and the bottom of the oceans. There is a huge market for unique experiences, no matter how remote or low on comfort – and there is a huge population willing to pay and experience and endure to get what they are looking for. One of the different passions driving these people is the drive to explore untouched locations. The growing interest in visiting unique experiences has given rise to an emerging business line – specialized tourism operations that cater to this select clientele. Selling experiences has become a booming business.
Defining Deep Sea Tourism
In this study, one specific type of tourism, deep sea tourism is defined. It is tourism on the oceanic and undersea environments that are deeper than the known point of the Exclusive Economic Zone, which is 200 meters. According to the Institute of Underwater Science and Technology, the environmental control of repetitive coastal engineering operations can be very time intensive. Diving or other inspection techniques will be incompatible with the severe reduction in construction cost. Alternatively, modification of diving systems for deep sea use would be valuable. Encouragement in this area of technological development can be reinforced by the new opportunity that will arise when coastal economic zones are expanded to 200 miles. Doust (1972) also pointed out that although the control over 200 miles of the seas has caused many countries to shift their technical work from shallow to deep water, 200 fms is the practical limit for saturation diving as well as hard hat diving. In deep water work, the economics of diver safety may be primarily responsible for this old adage, Goldin (1973) mentions that currently available diving systems have well defined practical limits of approximately 300 fms. Each system has a different efficiency and various levels of depth capability.
It is always important to specify the phenomenon or the field of study. When deep sea tourism is mentioned, the concept is explicit, yet the vast majority of the scholars fail to stress the presence of the words “deep sea” when defining this particular type of tourism. Still, previous researchers fail to relate the concept with the deep sea in a more detailed manner. They formulated their definitions from vague concepts like international tourism, marine tourism, cruise tourism, and cruise ship tourism. Then, what are these all? At this point, to avoid blind alleys or getting lost in the jungle, it is essential to define the phenomena in a broad, coherent, and inclusive way.
The Science Behind the Deep Sea
The primary sources of deep-sea studies were mentioned. The deep sea acts like a sponge, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and helping to mitigate climate change. It also provides a range of resources that are valuable to the human tax, including fish stocks, bio-active compounds, pharmaceuticals, and rare metals. The deep sea plays a significant role in ecosystem service, which can be categorized in terms of climate, biological, cultural, geological, and medicinal service. In terms of climate service, the deep sea holds substantial storehouses of the trace element, methane, carbonates, muds, and methane in gas hydrates; however, the magnitude of carbon and methane stores varies with environmental and other parameters. In terms of biological service, deep-sea fisheries have significant value for humanity, providing the world with major sources of food and livelihood. In terms of cultural service, people are attracted to the beauty of the deep sea, its fauna, and the challenge presented by deep-sea landscapes. In terms of medicinal service, the deep sea can be viewed as a source of huge exciting new reserves of life-saving drugs.
The deep sea is the largest biome on the planet; humans have been venturing beneath the ocean’s surface for tens of thousands of years. The deep seas alone cover nearly two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, and the marine biology of the sea is only beginning to be discovered. For a long period of time, humans thought of the deep sea as a barren wasteland. In recent decades, however, advanced scientific research equipment has proposed the opposite. The deep sea is home to a wide diversity of organisms and habitats that we are only beginning to understand. The purpose of this chapter is to offer a comprehensive study of the deep seas while trying to elaborate on the importance of conserving this largely unexplored yet extremely important biome of the world. It is one of the planet’s last and greatest wilderness areas; it has the capability of providing humanity with ecosystems and a wide range of valuable services; hence we rely on the deep sea.
Geological and Biological Features
It was previously thought that the deep ocean floor was a uniform, unchanging habitat formed by mud, calcium carbonate, and biogenic silica, with no signs of life. With ever-improving scientific research tools, this view has gradually changed. The oceanic crust can be found in valleys, faults, submarine mountains, ridges, and other undulating terrains formed by countless sea-floor spreading or subduction processes. It has layering that is the significant resistant area of living organisms. The types of sediment are related to location and the water column above. In the water column right over the coast, the calcium carbonate sedimentation rate is high, while organic carbon and biological fragments are generally low. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans far from the mainland, the sediments are composed of erect signalling and guano. At present, hundreds of classic bottom habitats such as hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, cold coral reefs, canyons, and Irgali fissures have been observed and found to be home to thousands of remarkable biological species on fractured underwater topographies in the continental slope around the world. These habitats have high endemism and discovery potential.
Geologically, the deep sea has divergent morphologies that have marked differences from shallow marine environments. Like shallow-water oceans, hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, microbial mats, slide scars, debris flows, bumpy bubbles, and pockmarks serve as habitats for a variety of chemosynthetic organisms. Bathymetric variations, bottom types, currents, geological age, and physical and chemical properties of the oceanic crust are the main factors responsible for this variance. They express themselves in a wide variety of biological phenomena. It had been believed since the time of Aristotle that life could not exist below 183 m – the depth at which sunlight penetrates and fuels photosynthesis in phototrophic organisms. Inhabitants of the deep sea were gradually discovered as the development of scientific equipment and technology evolved. Currently, researchers have discovered an abundance of species in the deep sea and observed a series of astonishing ecological and biogeographical events. These include huge congregations of certain species, impressive reproduction and development of alien-looking fish with unique ways of movement, and special adaptations to life at extreme depths. These discoveries reveal the biological secrets of the bottom of the ocean.
Technological Innovations in Deep Sea Exploration
To enhance the observation capability, advanced wireless technologies are developed such as the underwater wireless sensor network (UWSN) and Mobile Underwater Sensor Network (MUSN) based on hybrid acoustic-radio communications using moored and Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV). However, these technologies are not suitable for the tasks of real-time large data rate, video transmission and reliable communication, over the great water depth that is mainly for offshore development. The other technological innovation developed for deep water operations is underwater docking remote operation. In this model, a docking interface, allowing a ROV to engage with an underwater vehicle mates providing the operation interface, manipulation capacity, and power required.
Several technologies are used to explore the sea. Manned submarines have been one of the first technologies to explore the deep sea. However, they have some limitations which include the danger to human life, high expense, and the size and fragility of non-free-swimming submarines. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are spatially disconnected from the operator on board Grand Hydrographic vessels (II) and deepwater drilling operations and their mission frame does not support inspection operations without extensive umbilical tooling. Moreover, a support ship is essential and high dependence on a support vessel is one of the major disadvantages of ROV operation. Acoustically linked autonomous underwater vehicle (AL-UAV) has the capabilities designed to reduce those weaknesses, as it can fly to the operational area and perform operations such as inspection and manipulators without an external support ship. However, they are rather slow and cannot operate beyond the communication distance limitation.
Submersibles and ROVs
The purpose of this research is to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing offer of insertion in the deep sea for non-specialists. This major objective involves three sequential steps. One of the main activities at the network’s website is to provide the news from the scientific community involved in more activities about the deep sea, which is the area of research missions and other planned activities and to realize which will be the actual geography of the interdisciplinary exploration of science, because we are aware of the fact that the few informations about deep sea available to the public over the internet are provided by a scenic, popular and touristic approach.
Heroes and their stories spark the common man’s imagination. There have been several explorations in the depths of the ocean, and the deep sea explorers are heroes in the popular imagination. Deep sea is, however, an untold story in the world of tourist exploration. Authors have provided in this study a thorough information on these submarines or ROV rentals available on a commercial basis for actual or virtual exploration experience. This service is used by the oil and ships industry to inspect or repair something at very great depths. Up to a certain correspondence to a simulated experience, it could also be an important component of tourist offer.
Environmental Impact of Deep Sea Tourism
The sentient beings of the deep sea must have their own culture. These views are irrational. However, under the ancient and modern stereotypes of sea monsters, people reflect on the meaning of the existence of the deep sea and its connection to people. Its frequent contact with human beings has caused anthropologists, like biologists and geologists, to identify the deep sea as a community. Our discussion also concludes that the founders and audiences of these early deep sea tourism activities, at multiple levels, are constantly adjusting the relationship between the natural environment of the sea and the economic development of the tourist potential. We have a profound interest in this area. The commercial interests built on marine tourism involve complex issues of ownership of the undersea, land rights, pollution diplomacy in special areas, and the status of the big prizes in the competitive game.
Deep sea tourism, headquartered in many parts of the world, can make great contributions to the development of local communities on the coasts and on remote islands. However, it also brings a huge impact to the ecology along the route. The environmental impact of deep sea tourism and how to manage it have long been in the spotlight of academia and industry. The world’s sea tourism is rich and colorful, such as the role of the World Heritage tours, research vessel expeditions, cruise parties, luxury yacht vacations, etc. Its impact on the environment is significant, resulting in increasingly serious impacts. This paper promotes the environmental protection of the public welfare suggestions for the world’s deep sea tourism, sea economic prosperity, and beyond.
Sustainable Practices
Some policies should be directed to encourage preserved outskirt areas through hunting and fishing tourism, environmental, cultural, and food itineraries. These areas can have homes that can be used as mountain cottages or for tourist accommodation. There can also be rural plays, with the organization of agricultural productions, including beekeeping. Additionally, there can be tourism of religious spirituality, benefiting the existing equipped shelters, as well as horse-riding, bicycle paths, and cultural routes.
This work proposes a research model designed to identify and assess the existing deep sea tourism activities. The goal is to exploit all these possibilities, seeking a model for the realization of a sustainable coastal territorial development and sustainable maritime development. This model should be capable of creating wealth, jobs, and contributing to the comfort and services qualification to be made available to the resident population. The results will direct the policy of regional development and reduce the asymmetric distribution and pollution of real estate by reducing the increasing pressure on the most degraded portions.
For maritime natural activities, such as deep sea or coastal tourism, the principle unfolds in the need to guarantee coexistence and sustainability between the different users. This involves providing the right means and recognizing the right to use them, as well as assuring equal guarantees and equal commitment. It is necessary to carry out preventive and preparative activities starting from a detailed zoning of maritime areas. This activity starts with the knowledge of the uses of the maritime spaces.
The principle of responsibility, whose articulation can be traced back to the early years of the debate on sustainable development, emphasizes the need for all activities, including tourism, to be carried out responsibly. This makes it possible to distribute all the resources and activities available between the various populations, in such a way as not to overexploit the natural heritage and future generations.
Future Prospects and Challenges in Deep Sea Tourism
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The possibilities for venturing into the deep seas are immense. Various remote islands exist in places like the Seychelles, Maldives, and in the Pacific regions. In some, the visibility is exceptional, like in the case of a deep blue hole in a coral reef off the coast of Guam. In addition, there are a number of newly discovered sites such as the submersible sites off Florida and the deep sea launching off Guam. Closer to home, the presence of submersible vehicles indicates the level of interest in operating in this field. These vehicles frequently submerge to study volcano eruptions and other disturbances on the sea floor. Because of these attractions, the market potential has been large. So far, it has been found that, in the midst of a severe, long-term worldwide recession, at least five different search services have been established in locations rather remote from those advanced operational submersible sites. Despite the great potential, currently little deep sea tourism takes place. The high cost of current underwater technology prices private tours at approximately U.S. $2000 to $2500 per hour. Not many such tours are currently operating. Indeed, reality has yet to catch up with the potential.
Current advancements in science and technology are contributing to increased use of available ocean resources. As a result, underwater exploration and chronicling of ocean depths being conducted for decades purely for research reasons have transformed into a full-fledged leisure activity. The growing tourist traffic to numerous underwater marine sanctuaries may be cited as empirical evidence suggesting increased public interest in the region. The deep sea is still relatively unexplored territory and the potential for future tourism in the area remains high. The market potential is vast, primarily because of the intrinsic human desire to ‘conquer’ the sea. Nevertheless, tourism to the deep sea presents its own set of unique challenges. This paper discusses briefly the vast potential, the possible future opportunities, and challenges that await promoters of deep sea tourism.