Reinforcing Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessments: Holistic Approach and Future Research Directions

Introduction

Three categories of “carrying capacity” assessments of an area, namely physical, environmental, and perceptual/psychological - primarily seem to focus upon the negative impacts of physical resource saturation, ecological degradation, and psychological decline of visitors’ experience (Pearce, 1989; La Rocca, 2005). World Tourism Organization (WTO) proposed the definition of the term “carrying capacity” as ‘the maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without destroying the physical, economic, socio-cultural environment and an unacceptable decrease in the quality of visitors' satisfaction’ (PAP/RAC, 1997; UNWTO 1981; Corbau, Benedetto, Congiatu, Simeoni, & Carnoni, 2019). Similarly, other researchers and academicians have subsequently attempted to redefine ‘carrying capacity’ in the context of tourism, such 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” (Chamberlain, 1997); while authors defined it in terms of certain threshold levels for tourism activities and presented it beyond which the damage to the bio-physical environment will occur (Clark, 1997); and, presents as the measure of the tolerance value of the destination site beyond which the impacts may become visible due to tourism activities (Middleton and Hawkins, 1998); to name a few.

The above-cited definitions pinpoint the interplay between crucial variables, such as human visitor interventions, physical resource saturation, environmental degradation, and quality of visitor experiences which impact the tourism carrying capacity of a destination. Researchers have also attempted to deconstruct the TCC concept and discuss its relationships which are found in the works of Wall (1982), O’Reilly (1986), Lindberg, McCool, & Stankey, 1997; Lindberg & McCool (1998), McCool & Lime, (2001); Castellani, Sala, & Pitea, (2007) with few studies researching upon environmental impacts of tourism (Bimonte & Punzo, 2011; Zhong, Deng, Song, & Ding, 2011; Zacarias, Williams, & Newton, 2011; Salerno, Viviano, Manfredi, Caroli, Thakuri, & Tartari, 2013; de Sousa, Pereira, da Costa, & Jiménez, 2014; Cimnaghi & Mussini, 2015; Sharma, 2016; Zhang, Li, Su, & Hu, 2017; Prokopiou, Tselentis, & Toanoglou, 2013; Han, 2018). In recent times with the expansion in tourism horizon in different applied sectors such as medical, natural, adventure, protected areas, ecotourism and several others, the associated impact of these activities are widespread and exploding in multiple dimensions. Hence, it will be more appropriate to revisit the carrying capacity assessment and its attributes to address the current tourism scenario. Further, existing assessment methodologies and frameworks are considered in an isolated or dichotomous system, which dilutes the overall effectiveness of carrying capacity assessments. In this regard, through a review of existing literature using meta-analysis approach, this study attempts to identify gaps and evolution of the tourism carrying capacity concept for proposing a more integrated and comprehensive framework for future carrying capacity assessment. The same could help practitioners, researchers, and managers better estimate decisions related to destination management and policy-making.