Causes and Correlates of Unsustainable Scuba Diving Tourism on Coral Reefs

Coral reef ecosystems are major tourism destinations facing unprecedented decline. Scuba diving, often promoted as sustainable and non‐extractive, can directly and indirectly degrade reefs. Using video‐assisted observations and post‐dive questionnaires, we quantified observed and self‐reported reef contacts, damages, and attitudes among 732 scuba divers across Indonesia and the Philippines. Divers made 0.26 ± 0.02 reef contacts min−1 (mean ± SE), with a few outliers responsible for disproportionately high rates. Unintentional and/or unnoticed damages dominated impacts, comprising 81.9% of damaging contacts. Divers overestimated their abilities relative to peers (illusory superiority; ∼75% rated themselves above average) and relative to observed behavior (attitude–behavior gap; underestimating reef contacts by 4.92 ± 0.93‐fold; mean ± bootstrapped SE). Overconfidence was greatest among the least competent divers, consistent with the Dunning–Kruger effect. Random forest analyses identified accessory use (especially cameras), operator eco‐certification status (Green Fins), peer behavior, and wildlife encounters as key correlates of reef contacts. Fixed‐effects models showed contacts more than doubled when other contemporaneous divers touched the reef, and wildlife sightings increased intentional, unintentional, and damaging contacts by 220%, 85%, and 106%, respectively, revealing a tourism paradox in which wildlife encounters elevate behaviors that degrade the very habitats upon which those wildlife depend.