Abstract
Sustainability of tourism development in protected areas relies largely on the ability of destination management to harmonize the activities of visitors, local communities, entrepreneurs and other tourism actors with the primary aim of nature and landscape protection. Based on conceptual analysis, the manuscript refines tourism carrying capacity theory and operationalizes it into a cohesive systems approach to evidence-based visitor management in protected areas. The proposed modified concept of tourism carrying capacity approaches the protected area as a destination system where the continuous determination, estimation, and attainment of the visitation optimum are the main problems to be solved. The overall aim is to construct a comprehensive destination model which can be embedded into a decision-support system for visitor management. Testing of the proposed system, derived through an inductive process, has been initiated in the Czech Republic's protected area, for which a comprehensive destination model is being created. • Time and space changes of carrying capacity reflect destination processes dynamics. • These changes of carrying capacity have to be reflected in the destination model. • Visitation optimum is used to define effective and potential carrying capacity. • The refined carrying capacity concept can greatly improve visitor management.
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