As Part of A Planning System
The definitions of carrying capacity need to be considered as processes within a planning process for tourism development which involves:
- Setting capacity limits for sustaining tourism activities in an area. This involves a vision about local development & decisions about managing tourism.
- Overall measuring of tourism carrying capacity does not have to lead to a single number, like the number of visitors (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/pdf/tcca_material.pdf. Date assessed 08/03/07).
- In addition, carrying capacity may contain various limits in respect to the three components (physical-ecological, socio-demographic and political–economic).
“Carrying capacity is not just a scientific concept or formula of obtaining a number beyond which development should cease, but a process where the eventual limits must be considered as guidance. They should be carefully assessed and monitored, complemented with other standards, etc. Carrying capacity is not fixed. It develops with time and the growth of tourism and can be affected by management techniques and controls” (Saveriades, 2000).
The reason for considering carrying capacity as a process, rather than a means of protection of various areas is in spite of the fact that carrying capacity was once a guiding concept in recreation and tourism management literature. Because of its conceptual elusiveness, lack of management utility and inconsistent effectiveness in minimising visitors' impacts, carrying capacity has been largely re-conceptualized into management by objectives approaches, namely: the limits of acceptable change (LAC), and the visitor experience and resource protection (VERP) as the two planning and management decision-making processes based on the new understanding of carrying capacity (Lindberg and McCool, 1998). These two have been deemed more appropriate in the tourism planning processes of protected areas, especially in the United States, and have over the years been adapted and modified for use in sustainable tourism and ecotourism contexts (Wallace, 1993; McCool, 1994; Harroun and Boo, 1995).
Read more about this topic: Tourism Carrying Capacity
Famous quotes containing the words part, planning and/or system:
“In the latter part of the seventeenth century, according to the historian of Dunstable, “Towns were directed to erect ‘a cage’ near the meeting-house, and in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath were confined.” Society has relaxed a little from its strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is not less religion than formerly. If the ligature is found to be loosened in one part, it is only drawn the tighter in another.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
“The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.”
—Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911)