Tourism plays an important role in the economic development of Thailand, contributing to as much as 7% of Thailand national GDP. Pristine beaches in Thailand attracts millions of tourists every year. On one hand, the local economy is boosted with tourism. Contrary to that, over-tourism may lead to stress on the local environment. One of the classical examples of the impact of over-tourism on the environment is the degradation of pristine beach and coral communities in the Maya Bay, Phi Phi Leh, southern Thailand. This paper aims to analyze the paradox of over-tourism, income opportunities and the impact on coral community in Maya bay, based on the literature. Ever since Maya bay was known to the world in early 2000s, the daily number of tourists increased by close to 3000-fold in the last 20 years. Though tourism helped to increase the local economy dramatically, later, due to the impact of probably overexploitation of corals from snorkelling and diving, and wash-off of the toxic UV-filters led to the bleaching of the corals. Most of the corals were dead in 20 years of tourism exploitation by 2017. The Government of Thailand came up with the strategy to ban Maya bay as a tourist hotspot and promoted coral recovery. Because of the solid policy, and action plan of the multiple stakeholders, in the last three years, corals have been significantly recovered. This paper discusses about the strength, weakness, challenges, opportunities and threat of the action plan in restoring coral community in Maya bay.