Tourism Carrying Capacity: Tempting Fantasy or Useful Reality?

McCool, Stephen F.; Lime, David W.

doi:10.1080/09669580108667409

Cited by 311 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…but rather determining how many changes to environmental conditions are acceptable given the development objectives of a destination (McCool & Lime, 2001). McCool and Lime (2001:381) argue that '[u]ltimately, impacts cannot be avoided, but they can be managed based on established objectives or an understanding of the biophysical or social conditions desired'.…”

Section: Has Sustainability Been Usefully Measured?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Tourism Development: A Critique

Liu

2003

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

844

487

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Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly popular field of researchsince the late 1980s. However, the sustainable tourism debate is patchy, disjointed and often flawed with false assumptions and arguments. This paper is a brief critique of some of the weaknesses in the sustainable tourism literature. In particular, it explores six issues that are often overlooked but must be addressed in research: the role of tourism demand, the nature of tourism resources, the imperative of intra-generational equity, the role of tourism in promoting sociocultural progress, the measurement of sustainability, and forms of sustainable development. Finally, it is argued that in order to transform research on sustainable tourism to a more scientific level, a systems perspective and an interdisciplinary approach are indispensable.

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Section: Has Sustainability Been Usefully Measured?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Tourism Development: A Critique

Liu

2003

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

844

487

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“…However, McCool and Lime (2001) do not share this same view basing their arguments on the subjectivity when identifying the desired level of each indicator and the difficulties of establishing the relationship between number of visitors and each indicator. Another point that generates controversy around physical carrying capacity is that it does not consider the level of interaction between tourists themselves and between tourists and local communities.…”

Section: Physico-ecological Carrying Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Recreation carrying capacity estimations to support beach management at Praia de Faro, Portugal

Zacarias¹,

Williams²,

Newton³

2011

Applied Geography

145

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a b s t r a c tThe purpose of this research paper is to outline the theory and practice of tourism carrying capacity assessment and its relevance as a management tool for coastal management. Based on the Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment for Protected Areas Framework and the Image Capture Technique associated with the PAOT (people at one time) approach, this paper explores Praia de Faro as the study area and attempts to assess the optimum number of people that should be allowed without jeopardizing the surrounding ecological, social and cultural environments. Results showed that the physico-ecological carrying capacity should be between 1385 and 2628 visitors/day with maximum impact acceptability curves being 305 and 608 tourists (for local people and tourists respectively). Although there was a significant difference between the physico-ecological and socio-cultural carrying capacity, this study suggests that the physico-ecological carrying may be applied for ecosystem management, whilst the socio-cultural carrying capacity may be addressed when management objectives are tourists and beach users.

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“…Even if TCC studies probably began during the 1930's (O'Reilly, 1986Saveriades, 2000), they were principally developed in the 1960's in the national parks of the United States of America (McCool and Lime, 2001;Manning et al, 2002). However, what we draw up today is that after several decades of experimentation, the concept itself has not evolved a lot and criticisms are still approximately the same (Deprest, 1997;Clarke, 2002 Here, we won't focus on these controversies, but we must point out that even if we admit some limitations of the TCC approach, we believe in its usefulness for dealing with territorial development issues.…”

Section: Tcc Approach: Principles Framework and Methodological Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McCool and D.W. Lime (2001) talked about the "limits of acceptable change" and defined TCC as "the amount of change acceptable". Acceptability refers to many dimensions, from environmental assets, dynamics and equilibrium to anthropogenic features.…”

Section: Definition and Main Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%