Severe coral bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef could cost it more than a million visitors a year and huge sums in lost tourism revenue, a survey said Tuesday. The World Heritage-listed reef which teems with marine life experienced an unprecedented bleaching earlier this year that saw much of it whiten and almost a quarter of corals die.
"The reef tourism areas are at risk of losing over one million visitors per year," a discussion paper from the independent think-tank the Australia Institute said.
It added that Aus$1 billion (US$747 million) of potential revenue could be lost if those visitors do not travel to the tropical reef region. Some 10,000 jobs in Queensland state were also at risk from a drop in tourism, a major industry in the area, it added.
"Continued bleaching could not only impact the reef's status as Australia's premier international tourist destination, but also impact Australia's identity as an international tourist destination," it said.
The report said last year, about 3.5 million tourists, mostly Australians, visited areas along the reef. The institute surveyed thousands of Australians and others from of the major tourism markets of China, the United States and Britain.
