Tourism Carrying Capacity: Tempting Fantasy or Useful Reality?

Abstract

Increased interest in the sustainability of tourism development initiatives has triggered expanding concerns about the capability of both tourism destinations and protected areas to accommodate recreational use. In many cases, planners and scientists have turned to the concept of tourism or recreation carrying capacity as a way of formulating problem definitions and management actions. The concept of a tourism or recreation carrying capacity evolved from a neo-Malthusian perspective of resource limitations. The concept also carries a number of assumptions that are unsupported in the real world and raises questions about the objectives of tourism and protected area management actions. The conditions needed to establish a carrying capacity are rarely achieved in the real world. There may be specific and limited situations where numerical capacities may be appropriate (parking lots, etc.) but these are often a function of investment. By changing the character of the question from 'How many is too many?' to 'What are the appropriate or acceptable conditions?', the issues giving rise to discussions about carrying capacity are addressed. A variety of planning frameworks, such as Visitor Experience and Resource Protection and Limits of Acceptable Change have been developed to address issues of visitor impact.