Tourism carrying capacity

Tourism carrying capacity is an approach to managing visitors to protected areas and national parks which evolved out of the fields of range, habitat and wildlife management. In these fields, managers attempted to determine the largest population of a particularly species that could be supported by a habitat over a long period of time. [ www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/WHS%20Management/purbeck_carrying_capacity_report.pdf]

Tourism Carrying Capacity is defined by the World Tourism Organisation as “The maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing destruction of the physical, economic, socio-cultural environment and an unacceptable decrease in the quality of visitors' satisfaction.” Where as Middleton and Hawkins Chamberlain (1997) define it as “the level of human activity an area can accommodate without the area deteriorating, the resident community being adversely affected or the quality of visitors experience declining” [www.netcoast.nl/coastlearn/website/tourism/con_capacity.html] what both these definitions pick up on is carrying capacity is the point at which a destination or attraction starts experiencing adverse as a result of the number of visitors.

There are number of different forms of carrying capacity referred to in tourism, however this article will focus on the four most commonly used.

Physical carrying capacity

This is the max number that area is actually able to support. In the case of an individual tourist attraction it is the maximum number that can fit on the site at any given time and still allow people to be able to move. This is normally assumed to be around 1 meter per a person. “PCC per a day = area (in metres squared) x visitors per metre x daily duration “(Mowforth and Munt) [Mowforth, M. Munt, I. Tourism and sustainability; Development and new tourism in the third world, Routledge, London] This is a formula which has been used to calculate the physical carrying capacity.

Economic carrying capacity

This relates to a level of unacceptable change within the local economy of a tourist destination, it is the extent to which a tourist destination is able to accommodate tourist functions without the loss of local activates [Mathieson and Wall, 1982, Tourism; economic, physical and social impacts, Longman, Harlow] , take for example a souvenir store taking the place of a shop selling essential items to the local community. Economic Carrying capacity can also be used to describe the point at which the increased revenue brought by tourism development is overtaken by the inflation caused by tourism.

Social carrying capacity

This relates to the negative socio-cultural related to tourism development. The indicators of when the social carrying capacity has been exceeded are a reduced local tolerance for tourism as described by Doxey’s Index of irritation [G. Shaw, A Williams, 1997, Critical issues in tourism: a geographical perspective, Blackwell] . Reduced visitor enjoyment and increased crime are also indicators of when the social carrying capacity has been exceeded.

Biophysical carrying capacity

This deals with the extent to which the natural environment is able to tolerate interference from tourists. This is made more complicated by the fact that because it deals with ecology which is able to regenerate to some extent so in this case the carrying capacity is when the damage exceeds the habitats ability to regenerate. Environmental carrying capacity is also used with reference to ecological and physical parameters, capacity of resources, ecosystems and infrastructure. [Mexa, A. Coccossis, H. 2004, Tourism carrying capacity assessment, Ashgate]

Weaknesses of carrying capacity

The main criticism of carrying capacity is that difficult to calculate a maximum number of visitors because this is also dependent on other factors like the way in which the tourists behave ‘a large group of birdWatchers moving through a landscape will have a different impact compared to a similar sized group of school children.’ [www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/WHS%20Management/purbeck_carrying_capacity_report.pdf] It is often the case that the carrying capacity only becomes apparent once it has been surpassed. In the case of Natural heritage like the national parks the carrying capacity changes with the seasons.

UNESCO (the organization responsible for administrating the World Heritage list) have expressed a concern that the use of Carrying capacity can give the impression that a site is better protected than it actually is, they point out that although the whole site may be below carrying capacity part of the site may still be crowded. [Pedersen A, Managing tourism at world heritage sites, UNESCO, Paris]

Limits of Acceptable Change

Limits of acceptable change was the first of the post carrying capacity visitor management theories. The theory was developed by The U.S forest service in the 1980’s. It is based on the idea that rather than there being a threshold of visitor numbers, in fact any tourist activity is having an impact and therefore management should be based on constant monitoring of the site. It is possible that with in the Limit of acceptable change framework a visitor limit will be set but this theory takes a much broad approach to the problem. The theory is occasionally summarised in to a nine step process.

1. Identify area concerns and issues.2. Define and describe opportunity classes (based on the concept of ROS).3. Select indicators of resource and social conditions.4. Inventory existing resource and social conditions.5. Specify standards for resource and social indicators for each opportunity class.6. Identify alternative opportunity class allocations.7. Identify management actions for each alternative.8. Evaluate and select preferred alternatives.9. Implement actions and monitor conditions. [www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/WHS%20Management/purbeck_carrying_capacity_report.pdf]

List from www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/WHS%20Management/purbeck_carrying_capacity_report.pdf

Visitor Experience Resource protection

This theory is based on the on the idea that not enough attention has been given to the experience of tourists and there views on environmental quality. It argues that decision making should be based on visitor feedback. This is very much picking up on the point that if the social carrying capacity is exceeded then tourists will have less enjoyable time because of crowding. As well as visitor feedback this method uses resource quality monitoring in decision making.

See also

* Ecotourism

Notes

References

* [http://www.jurassiccoast.com/downloads/WHS%20Management/purbeck_carrying_capacity_report.pdf]

* [http://www.netcoast.nl/coastlearn/website/tourism/con_capacity.html]

* Mowforth, M. Munt, I. Tourism and sustainability; Development and new tourism in the third world, Routledge, London
* Mathieson and Wall, 1982, Tourism; economic, physical and social impacts, Longman, Harlow

* G. Shaw, A Williams, 1997, Critical issues in tourism: a geographical perspective, Blackwell
* Mexa, A. Coccossis, H. 2004, Tourism carrying capacity assessment, Ashgate
* Pedersen A, Managing tourism at world heritage sites, UNESCO, Paris