Tourism and the Environment: Some Observations on the Concept of Carrying Capacity

Abstract

The relationship of tourism and the main components of the man-nature system are subject to much discussion but relatively little investigation. This chapter is based on the hypothesis that tourism generates environmental externalities and is often affected by them. When the negative effects of such externalities exceed certain levels of disturbance of the environment, significant and irreversible changes occur which alter the basic processes and characteristics of the environment. The carrying capacity (C.C.) concept has often been used to identify the limits of a system to absorb changes. The concept of carrying capacity as a planning tool is investigated in a systematic and comprehensive manner, by analysing its major dimensions. The aim of this analysis is to increase our understanding of this important and intrinsically too extensive and complex multifaceted concept, to discuss its applicability in the studies of the growing tourist industry and demonstrate how composite perspectives of the concept can provide valuable insights into some phenomena of interest to academic observers and researchers in allied disciplines such as resource management, planning, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, business administration, as well as to those involved in the development and management of the tourist industry at various levels. There is in addition a new opportunity for detailed consideration of the resource base tourism in a period where the industry shows many signs of approaching a point of crisis caused by considerable weaknesses in understanding the relationship of increasing pressure — demand to natural, cultural and heritage resources (Parpairis, 1992).