The Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development (CESD), a policy oriented research institute committed to providing analysis and tools for sustainable tourism development, was commissioned by the Marine Program of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington, DC to analyze the current trends and to test WWF’s working hypothesis about the main drivers behind coastal and marine tourism, and then to propose what interventions would be most useful should WWF develop a new tourism program. This study examines the structure of the tourism industry, the main types of tourism, the impacts (economic, environmental, and social) of marine and coastal tourism and the global trends in tourism development, financing and marketing. It also analyzes coastal and marine tourism in several key regions identified by WWF as being of the highest priority because of the diversity of life they support, the potential destruction they face, and WWF’s ability to impact them over the next decade. This report of CESD’s findings concludes with recommended interventions that WWF could take as a way to begin addressing the threats that coastal tourism development poses to biodiversity conservation and the well being of destination communities.