Establishing the social tourism carrying capacity for the tourist resorts of the east coast of the Republic of Cyprus

✍ Scribed by Alexis Saveriades

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 140 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0261-5177
• DOI: 10.1016/s0261-5177(99)00044-8

✦ Synopsis

It is inevitable that the development of tourism induces changes on the social character of a destination. However, the direction (i.e., whether positive or negative) and the magnitude of these changes depends on the carrying capacity of a destination in relation to the volume of tourist activity. Each destination can sustain a speci"c level of acceptance of tourist development and use, beyond which further development can result in socio-cultural deterioration or a decline in the quality of the experience gained by visitors. In other words, the carrying capacity of a destination is determined (i) by its ability to absorb tourist development before negative impacts are felt by the host community; and (ii) by the level of tourist development beyond which tourist #ows will decline because the destination area ceases to satisfy and attract them. This paper attempts, "rstly, to shed light on the concept of carrying capacity and its importance as a management tool in tourism planning and development, and secondly, to assess the carrying capacity of a region in terms of sociological capacity thresholds.