Przestrzeń turystyczna i jej wykorzystanie na wyspach Morza Andamańskiego i Morza Karaibskiego. Studium porównawcze

The Caribbean belongs to the most attractive tourist areas of the world. Tourists are particularly interested in the islands of Lesser Antilles. The islands of southern Thailand (Koh Pukhet, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Lanta) situated on the Andaman Sea are also attractive and often visited. Several differences can be observed within each one of the regions and between both of them. They are the result of geopolitical situation, natural conditions and among them natural diversity of the islands, their extend, tourist attractions, technical infrastructure, and especially the presence or absence of modern airports and deep-water sea ports. Comparing tourist space and the presence of tourist installations in both regions we can notice similarities and differences of geopolitical situation (the islands of Andaman Sea are politically uniform while lesser Antilles are politically diversified) natural conditions (in the Caribbean we observe grater diversity of the island extension then on the Andaman Sea; in the Caribbean there are is land several times bigger then the islands of Andaman Sea - Guadeloupe is three time bigger then Pukhet - the biggest island of southern Thailand, Trinidad is eight limes bigger; Caribbean islands are more elevated, and genetically more diversified, while island on Andaman Sea are situated closer to the continent), tourist attractiveness (which is similar in both regions although some big volcanic Caribbean island offer more attractions; natural environment of Thai islands is less transformed), technical infrastructure (which is better developed in the Caribbean; on the islands of Andaman Sea there is only one international airport, some island have no paved roads nor electricity; the Caribbean island are more expensive), tourist installations (on the Andaman Sea the number of is land equipped in tourist installations is much more limited, the quality of services in the Caribbean is higher, in both region we observe internal diversification of tourist installations; Pukhet is the only Thai island with installations similar to those in the Caribbean; in the Caribbean it is difficult to find an island similar to the Thai ones, with the exception of Pukhet).