Journal of Heritage Tourism

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Time, tourism area ‘life-cycle,’ evolution and

heritage

Sagar Singh

To cite this article: Sagar Singh (2020): Time, tourism area ‘life-cycle,’ evolution and heritage,
Journal of Heritage Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/1743873X.2020.1766475

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JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM
https://doi.org/10.1080/1743873X.2020.1766475

Time, tourism area ‘life-cycle,’ evolution and heritage

Sagar Singh
A-965/6 Indira Nagar, Lucknow, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The tourism area life-cycle (TALC) concept has often not been supported Received 7 November 2019
by data. The link between tourism area life-cycle and evolution is usually Accepted 4 May 2020
not explored. In-depth understanding of the relationship between
KEYWORDS
natural and cultural heritage and tourism evolution, with a spiral Evolution; spiral time; history;
concept of time, that can be better predicted by local ‘calendars’ and cultural heritage; climate
folk wisdom, is lost sight of, affecting understanding. Discrepancies in change
TALC are understood by adjusting facts, including a hypothetical
homogeneous effect of marketing, to fit its hypothetical structure. This
paper re-examines these with the concept of spiral time and shows that
‘normality’ as per statistics and Butler’s model is purely hypothetical, not
borne out by facts. Examples from across the globe show that resorts do
not follow an exact pattern as described by the model. Better insights
can be gained by considering sub-cycles, cycles, and super-cycles.
Evolution is part of a broad theory of tourism based on diverse needs –
physical, physiological, psychological, social, cultural, linguistic, spiritual,
and emotional. A theory of evolution is necessary to understand
tourism, and statistical ‘normality’ cannot be adjusted with facts unless a
fresh perspective on time is considered, implying a paradigm shift and a
new perspective on tourism, heritage and evolution.

Introduction
Time and the tourism area ‘life-cycle’ (TALC) have a complex relationship (Butler, 2006a, 2006b;
Chapman & Light, 2016; Garay & Cànoves, 2011; Singh, 2011), since any life-cycle, biological or pro-
duct, is part of a longer term process called evolution, and develops from human needs – physical,
physiological, psychological, social, cultural, spiritual, linguistic, and emotional. As can be easily
observed in tourism area evolution (TAE), seen as a perspective on how destinations or resorts
evolve over a long period (at the very least 40 years; usually more than that), TALC appears to be
only a section of it. As in human species evolution, both tourism area life-cycle and evolution appear
to be linear processes, apparently in one, known direction, shown by a ‘statistical normal’ S-curve.
This is so in case rejuvenation is not taken into account and the five TALC stages – discovery, invol-
vement, growth, consolidation, and stagnation – end with either plateauing or decline (both form an
S-curve). Yet, just as in human evolution, a species or race may branch away, with some branches
coming to a dead end, others not; similarly tourism evolution is not the same as a life-cycle, the latter
being shorter, like a human family life-cycle; or, as in physical anthropology, long human lineages
often also ‘die out.’ The first criticism of all TALC theory is that it seems to indicate inevitability
of all life-cycles in an exactly similar way, but the end left uncertain to ‘accommodate’ the way des-
tinations actually turn out: it being easily observable in the long term that visitation to some desti-
nations may keep rising, or rise and fall in patterns that are not at all similar to the ‘S’ curve or

CONTACT Sagar Singh sagar_66@hotmail.com

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 S. SINGH

statistically ‘normal’ curve shown in Butler’s (1980) original graph. This paper argues for the use of
observations of climate change encapsulated in time-concept heritage, or regional calendars with
native wisdom, often ignored by researchers, in studying tourism and change.
TALC has very often not been supported by data on destinations. The clear link between tour-
ism area life-cycle and evolution is usually not explored. As a result, in-depth understanding of
the relationship between natural, cultural and tourism evolution (all affected by climate change),
which requires a spiral concept of time, and can be better predicted by local, native or regional
calendars and folk wisdom, is lost sight of, affecting the understanding of sustainability. Both
TALC (Butler, 1980; Butler, 2006a, 2006b) and the study of resilience in tourism (e.g. Butler,
2017) mean that some natural and cultural resources (heritage) are provided in such a way
that consumption can resume later (even if it is not ‘business-as-usual’) and are different from
tourism sustainability, in that the latter means that present generations can keep on using heritage
resources, only if unsustainable production and consumption are countered in a regular, consist-
ent way (Goodwin, 2011).
A very major criticism of TALC, not covered in any of the oft-quoted literature, nor in any chap-
ter in the two-volume set edited by Butler (2006a and 2006b) is the fact that the widely accepted effect
of marketing of tourism destinations /tourism areas on tourists (volume of sales and satisfaction), or
the S-curve, is totally ignored. In other words, the difference made by any type of marketing, and the
difference made by different extents of marketing or in type of marketing strategy on different types
of destinations is not taken into account. This one criticism clearly shows that the result of all types of
tourism development shown by TALC cannot always be a simple S-curve, as so easily accepted by
supporters of Butler’s TALC model. This fact is not mentioned anywhere in the tourism literature,
as far as is known; an extensive search failed to find any reference to this basic defect in the TALC
model.
Another criticism of the TALC concept is that it treats destinations as homogeneous entities,
whereas some researchers conceptualize destinations as a mosaic of elements, each of which may
follow a life-cycle different from that of the overall destination (Chapman & Light, 2016). Another
perspective, similar to the one presented here (i.e. the importance of emotion and experience as part
of change), has recently been emphasized by Dodds (2019). A corollary of this criticism, also not
noted by followers of the Butler model, is that the difference in approaches to a destination (difficulty
or ease of access) is not always resolved by technology since extremes of weather or change in-built in
the climate of some resorts – especially, for example, mountain resorts – can result in totally different
visitation/tourism than other resort types where the weather changes are not widely fluctuating.
Hence TALC’s generalization about such wide variety in types of visitation and the whole concep-
tual/practical problem of maintaining tourist volume and tourism destination branding is glossed
over, or not taken into account at all in a general S-curve for all destinations. Any mountaineer
or regular mountain tourist can tell a researcher that many destinations in the Greater (Higher)
Himalayas are not approachable by ordinary tourists in extremely cold December and January/Feb-
ruary. Mountain passes are snowed over. So, the way cultures have responded and adjusted to cul-
tural heritage that goes with natural heritage, in the form of visitation to high mountain destination
areas, like Himalayan national parks that are also home to sacred places (e.g. the Valley of Flowers
and Nanda Devi Biosphere reserve (Singh, 2016)), or resorts or towns built within high mountain
parks, has not been fixed, but are, in real terms, adjustment-oriented approaches that were controlled
in the case of Indian Himalayan religious destinations (not just temples) by a specialized religious
tourism agent, or panda (Kaur, 1985; Singh, 2004). As a result, visitation was and is adjusted to
both cultural needs or cultural heritage, and climatic variations (natural heritage). This, quite natu-
rally, varies from geographical area and climatic zones within geographical zones (which can show
extremes of temperature difference in the Himalayas, ranging from semi-tropical at the lower end to
Arctic-type zones in the Greater Himalayas); differences in road or air access; and hence extremely
wide differences in ‘ease or difficulty of access’ for tourists, both physical and mental, effectively curb-
ing tourism in some seasons. Marketing and infrastructure can change some of these factors, but
 JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM 3

climate change as long-standing civilizational cultures understand it, has long dictated who can
access an area, when, and for how long (see, e.g. Kaur, 1985 and Singh, 1989a, 1989b, for this pro-
blem in the Indian Himalayas in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh destinations).
To come back to the popular TALC model, de-evolution, while a rare process, also occurs,
but is not part of a life-cycle, since, with its completion, a species (or a resort) ends and hence
there is no continuation (as in a life-cycle) (see Relethford, 1994, for understanding de-evol-
ution of natural species and BBC, 2018, for how a coastal resort in UK actually disappeared
as a result of climate change, overfishing, and the ‘eating up’ of the coast by the sea, but
while its cultural heritage is still being preserved, the number of tourists have ‘disappeared’
almost totally in the past 50 years). In biological terms, life-cycle can be compared with con-
tinuation of a race in the medium term, but it also comes to an end, like an individual’s or a
family’s life. Agarwal (1997) maintains that in TALC the ‘unit of analysis’ is important and that
this is a basis for difficulty in operationalizing Butler’s model. But it has not been commented
upon in either Butler’s original work (1980) or his edited two-volume work on TALC (Butler,
2006a, 2006b), or in rise and fall of destination visitation (Plog, 1974), based on visitor-resident
irritants – Doxey’s (1975) work – or in any other work on life-cycle and tourism history, how
exactly is the concept of time related to life-cycle (cf. Garay & Cànoves, 2011; Walton, 2009). Is
it simply linear and therefore exactly replicable in patterns across the globe? Or does it keep
changing in a way that follows a circular path: that is, based on something similar to trade
cycles or business cycles? Agarwal (1997) maintains that critiques of Butler’s model should
either (a) test applicability of the model, or (b) reincorporate new issues not discussed. This
study belongs to both categories.
First, as in Table 1, one can see the rise and fall of religious tourist visitation to some Indian Hima-
layan destinations (these are not just shrines, but towns, and tourist stay in them regulated by reli-
gious functionaries as well as cultural mores, such as a strict two-day limit on staying in the town of
Badrinath, which limitation is over 200 years old: see Kaur, 1985). The sharp recovery, despite a
heavy loss in religious tourism for two years (2013, 2014) following cloudbursts and consequent
flash-floods in the mountains, shows how visitation can have no similarity to the Butler model. It
also shows that all tourist visitation is dependent on climate, and climatic rhythms and changes,
not just in the case of the Himalayas, but also elsewhere in the world. The Himalayan case cited
depends a lot on a hot climate in the rest of India in summer, and cool climate in the mountains;
and crucially dependent on (absence or lesser frequency of) heavy rain, in the monsoon season,
that often leads to massive, widespread landslides that are a threat to human lives, both of residents
and tourists.
Therefore, Butler’s model does not account for huge variations in climates that influence tour-
ist (and resident) activity directly, and therefore, tourism and climate change need to be studied
to a greater depth. But studying climate and climatic variation of the same destination, as well as
of different destinations, as also climate change, needs to be incorporated in the TALC model;
TALC’s inevitability (as an ‘S’ curve) precludes any substantial change, unless a basic shift in con-
ceptualization of time is used in visualizing TALC (that it is regular and repetitive, yet changing:
hence not linear and fixed-directional, but spiral). This means revising our concept of time as
‘handed down’ for the past two hundred years or so: that is, climatic variations need to be
accounted for, which the now seemingly adopted ‘world calendar,’ called Gregorian, cannot do
justice to (e.g. winter in July in Australia, and summer in December; the opposite during the
same time in the northern hemisphere), being linear and northern hemisphere oriented. So, cli-
matic heritage, such as autumn (American ‘Fall,’ marked by shades of beauty in trees in USA as
also places in Europe) has very little significance for tourists in evergreen tree-dominated South
Asia, where this is just a time when peak ‘foreign tourist’ season is about to begin. Similarly,
different seasons and associated climatic variations are important in other regions, such as, till
the past 5 years, the heavy rain off-season (June to August) in tourist-overladen Goa, India
(Singh, 2017).
4 S. SINGH

Table 1. Tourists to Two Himalayan Temple Towns (1976-2017).

Year Badrinath Kedarnath
1976 196,000 92,218
1981 214,080 97,202
1986 248,565 84,164
1990 362,757 117,774
1991 355,772 118,750
1992 412,597 141,704
1993 476,523 118,659
1994 347,415 104,639
1995 461,435 105,160
1996 465,992 105,693
1997 361,313 60,500
1998 340,510 82,000
1999 340,100 80,090
2000 735,200 215,270
2001 422,647 119,980
2002 448,517 169,217
2003 580,913 280,243
2004 493,914 274,489
2005 566,524 390,156
2006 741,256 485,464
2007 901,262 557,923
2008 911,333 470,048
2009 916,925 403,636
2010 921,950 400,014
2011 981,000 570,000
2012 985,998 548,166
2013 497,744 312,201
2014 180,000 40,832
2015 359,146 154,430
2016 624,745 309,746
2017 509,718 560,053
Sources: (Gupta, 1999; SacredYatra.com, 2017a, 2017b, The Tribune, 2017).

Background and Methodology

It is presumed in Butler’s model that time is a linear process and that this is a scientific ‘fact.’ But
economic history and economic and political geography show evidence of cycles in the long run (his-
tory) that do not follow patterns as described by Butler’s model, and therefore that history, including
history of visitation and tourism, cannot be thought of as simply linear (Hartshorn & Alexander,
1988; Henning, 2019; Polanyi et al., 1957; Pounds, 1972). But time has many ways of being concep-
tualized to account for variations in climate: local and regional calendars that encapsulate hundreds
of years of observation of climatic variations that are even more valid sometimes than that of modern
climate science: such as observations about how weather changes forecast variations in heat and cold,
cold or warm winds and abundance of/death of insects and/or death of crops and plants, as told by
peasants in agricultural societies that are part of a world culture (see, for example, Redfield, 1956;
Srinivas, 1960; Wolf, 1966). A wide number of cultures have a heritage of circular concepts of
time (see e.g. Kroeber, 1948), being often tuned to agricultural activities which are bound to patterns
of climate, or spiral time, such as followed (but often not understood) by those who subscribe to the
Gregorian calendar. Tourism, as clarified before, is also a social process that both impacts the natural
heritage and environment and is impacted by nature and climate, and is bound to time patterns or
seasons (both climatic and touristic, due to patterns of climate and weather natural to some areas,
but not others, at different ‘times’ in the same set of months).
As far as tourism areas and the concept of spiral time is concerned, if it is demonstrated that the
latter is more correct than linear time, it would show the inevitability of TALC beginning with slow
growth, but not always ending with decline or plateauing. Hence ‘rejuvenation’ would be more
amenable to our understanding as re-conceptualized cycles that also show rise and fall, overall,
 JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM 5

but relatively more so (sometimes greater decline, sometimes greater rise) in a ‘non-judgmental’ way.
This would be so since things repeat themselves in spiralism, which latter is a well-known basic con-
cept in history and anthropology, and in the history of ethnoi and genesis of the biosphere from a
Russian geographic perspective (Gumilëv, 1990), where dialectical interaction between the natural
environment and climate, and evolution of cultural heritage, is studied.
While computers apparently follow a linear, cumulative calendar started by Romans, the Julian
calendar (named after Julius Caesar), where dates keep on adding up (in thousands of days since
Caesar’s time, when it came into wide use) with the help of which linear cumulative calculation, a
formula for conversion into Gregorian day and date, can allow, for example, software such as MS
Windows to ‘pick up’ the exact day and date in any year 15 years ago or 15 years forward, this is
only for the sake of time being used in calculations by the CPU or central processing unit; it does
not mean that time itself is always, only truly linear and cumulative. Hence, even computer program-
ming, though, can use the Gregorian calendar, but is not productive in showing or predicting/fore-
casting variations in tourist visitation at various destinations across the world, as a result of climatic
variations, and/or climate change.
Therefore, to understand the implications of non-linear and non-cumulative time on tourism,
time concepts in philosophy and science were studied in detail, besides various time concepts in
anthropology (e.g. Britannica.com, 2019; Hawking, 1988; Kroeber, 1948; Relethford, 1994) and
the basis of the possibly widest and longest-existing form of tourism, visiting friends and relatives
(VFR) tourism (Backer & King, 2015). Books, reports and research papers on sustainability, carrying
capacity for tourism and TALC were studied, along with books on tourism planning (e.g. Buckley
et al., 2015; Butler, 2006a, 2006b; Getz, 1983; Gunn, 1988; Inskeep, 1991; Romeril, 1990; Singh,
2006; Swarbrooke, 1999; UNWTO, 1984; Young, 1973). These formed the basis for detailed analysis,
as follows.
The Gregorian calendar seems linear, but actually repeats itself, as various websites explain in the
same way. So, for non-leap years, if we start in 2003 then this calendar repeats in 2014, 2020, 2025
and 2031. The pattern is 11, 6, 5, 6 or, as others calculate it, 11, 6, 11. Though even leap years repeat
themselves, they do so every 28 years. For example, if we take leap year 2012, the next exact repeat of
the days and dates will be in 2040. The calendar has a spiral pattern, though not spiral in the sense of
a same-sense variation, or regular climate change and/or repetition, though it seems so to those who
have not followed climate changes in various places all over the world. While the calendar used by
ancient Mayans in Meso-America was based on complex arithmetic calculations that were astro-
nomical and therefore had less to do with agricultural activities (Aguiar, 1978), most other ancient
calendars, such as Indian and Chinese ones, are based on climatic and agricultural variations/
changes over the ‘year,’ including those not accounted for by modern climate science. TALC is con-
nected with tourism rise and fall patterns, which, till 200 years ago, in the case of religious tourism, or
VFR tourism, by traditional people, were quite dependent on agricultural activities, since a majority
of the population of the world was agricultural and hence usually ‘free or leisured enough for moving
out of town or village,’ respectively, during various agricultural ‘off-periods’ (or holidays) on which
the majority of the population was directly or indirectly dependent. These ‘off-periods,’ which in turn
were and are based on heritages of climatic variations (and formerly agriculture), vary across nations
and sub-continents, as also continents. Hence, modern-day tourism (as also modern tourism) as
seen by TALC is seen from the modern, affluent tourist perspective and hence is largely linear, or
repetitive in a very fixed way (hence linear), but if we have to account for a modified version of
TALC that allows for a majority of the world population that still depends on agricultural off-periods
to be able to engage in tourism (i.e. a major part of the developing world) then we have to think of
rejuvenation in a ‘non-fixed’ way, and have to take either the circular or the spiral patterns of time for
a precise assessment (e.g. Agarwal, 1997; Britannica.com, 2019; Henning, 2019; Zhong et al., 2008).
To do so, one must have reliable ‘calendars’ that take care of climatic variations, such as the onset of
the summer in different areas of the world (for example, the highest temperatures are often recorded
in August in UK, but in May and June in most of the plains in India); account for the heavy rainy
6 S. SINGH

(called monsoon) season in semi-tropical/tropical climates (e.g. in South Asia or South-East Asia);
Autumn in places where ‘Fall’ is marked by beauty (and hence an attraction for tourists); and Winter,
besides Spring.

Investigation of the Problem

The Gregorian calendar, while widely used, is not reliable precisely because it cannot account for cli-
matic changes in the whole world in an even, fixed way. However, it is clear that if we have to account
for the rise and fall of popularity of destinations, we have to account for the various seasons in var-
ious places in an accurate way, so as to presage the tide of tourists seasonally (it is widely understood
that tourism is highly seasonal in most mountain destinations, for example: see, for example, Kaur,
1985; Singh, 1989a, 1989b; Singh & Kaur, 1983; Singh & Kaur, 1985; Singh & Kaur, 1989), as well as
to predict climate change. This is one of the factors that accounts for rise and fall in tourist numbers,
besides yearly decline/rise, based on changes in weather, and climate, respectively, as well as number
and types of tourists (psychological tourism carrying capacity: Romeril, 1990; Singh, 2006; Singh,
2015), social and cultural carrying capacity, as well as design of facilities (perceptual carrying
capacity: Lindsay, 1986; Singh, 2015; UNWTO, 1984; Western, 1986). None of these factors alone
– by themselves important in determining the number of tourists, can account for why tourist
areas rise and fall in popularity as shown typically in the TALC model.
That is, the graphs actually derived from the growth patterns of destinations do not follow the life-
cycle model as Butler originally conceived it (e.g. Choy, 1992; Agarwal, 1997; Zhong et al., 2008;
Garay & Cànoves, 2011; Chapman & Light, 2016; Kristjánsdóttir, 2016; García et al., 2019). Also,
to account for (a) the impact of tourism on the natural environment; and (b) to stave off decline
in tourist numbers suggested by the TALC decline stage (considering linear time only), we have
to ‘manage tourism’ (that is, plan it, apart from market or de-market it, or develop other strategies
as relevant) and hence need a more flexible concept of time than the Gregorian one. We also have to
understand, as well, that if time is not linear, then cycles are part of a larger pattern and that evol-
ution is neither ‘a straight line’ nor a regular, typical ‘S’ curve, when shown on a graph.
Today, research is increasingly being directed at the problem of ‘resilience.’ Often, the application
of resilience thinking has been associated with the ability of destinations to recover from natural
hazards, health, economic, and security-related shocks (e.g. Biggs et al., 2012), and slow disturbances
like climate change (Becken, 2013). Cochrane (2010) talked about tourism and resilience, but, like
others before and after, referred to its roots in ecological approaches to tourism. Yet, it was not
explained what concept of time was employed, though it is evident that all patterns of ecosystem
and socio-ecological systems are rooted in equilibriums: both homoeostatic processes and those of
resilience (Adger, 2000), which latter imply a diachronic view (Hardesty, 1977; Ruhanen et al.,
2019), and thus are important for understanding evolution, not just of the human or other species
that are attractions or resources for nature-based tourism (Fennell, 2003), but also that of tourist
resorts or areas.
Cochrane (2010: p. 173) pointed out that Butler’s (1980) concept of tourism area life-cycle was an
example of [linear time] thinking, ‘except when rejuvenation at the end of the resort cycle is thought
of.’ She does not (just like others) talk of the effect of marketing on tourism volume and the fact that
tourism marketing is constantly being done throughout all the stages of a destination’s evolution, yet
in different ways and in differing intensities, making the regular S-curve with decline or rejuvenation
just an abstract mental concept that is not related, nor can be related, given marketing, to actual tour-
ist flows. Yet, TALC and carrying capacity for tourism are inextricably interrelated (Singh, 2006) and
the real study behind both is that of destination evolution, which can be reconciled only with a larger
picture that has yet to be studied: i.e. evolution over a minimum 40–100 years (Singh, 2011), i.e. the
minimum time for a valid economic history (Polanyi et al., 1957). Butler (2017, p. 20) seems to indi-
cate that resilience thinking is gradually increasing and if it continues to influence thinking about
tourism, might almost replace the concept of sustainability in tourism, even though the two are
 JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM 7

different. Resilience thinking, though it implies a concept of linear time, also accounts for recurrence,
and a vague concept of excess of tourism or ‘over-tourism’ (and hence ‘decline’ as presaged by
TALC). But TALC and resilience thinking both imply that history is largely linear. Resilience is ulti-
mately capacity to withstand change, including excess (or even lack) of tourism, like carrying
capacity (see Singh, 2006, for an early discussion of resilience and tourism). It is clearly not the
case with social and cultural history, which proceeds in directions that absorb political shocks
(Balandier, 1972; Pounds, 1972; Sharma, 1983). Thus, unlike the popular conception, we are
using spiral time which is directed by dialectical materialism, since tourism is a materialistic capita-
listic process (Bianchi, 2011); however, even the ‘Marxist’ inevitability of ‘proletarian-led revolution’
is doubtful, since it is deterministic; South Asian history is very different from Chinese, both of which
are substantially different from European, hence capitalism is of different types (see, e.g. Howard &
King, 1976).

Solving the Conceptual Problem

It should be clarified that while discussion of evolution is essentially tied up with that of life-cycle, the
problem of capturing yesterday’s ‘profile’ is different from today’s as effectively as comparing one set
of patterns that a kaleidoscope makes with the one it makes later. The constituent elements, in fact, of
the two sets of patterns are the same, but the way they combine make them look quite different. Not
only that: the two patterns that follow these two selected patterns seem random though they are not.
If a sufficiently large number of patterns are analysed, one may be able to predict what will follow (as
long as the elements remain the same): this is the difference between ordinary analysis and big data
analysis which is being used today, and can be used to understand ‘over-tourism.’ But the states of
society 40 years ago and the one now are not the same, as only investigation of tourism area evolution
can show. ‘Over-tourism’ 40 years ago was miniscule considered to that found today (see Table 1).
Technology has shortened distances and changed behaviour(s) of both hosts and tourists. Artificial
intelligence is being used to direct tourist behaviour in predictable ways (Singh, 2019a), and though
we are far from fully understanding a generalized monolithic ‘tourist behaviour’ (cf. Pearce, 1982)
over time, we know far more than when Young (1973) wrote about excessive tourism. We need
to understand, now, the ‘principles that make the kaleidoscopic patterns’ of society, rather than
just the patterns. One of these principles is time that repeats itself just as much as social history
does, and that, therefore, a spiral concept of time makes tourism evolution clearer, and can help
manage tourism sustainably.
So, even with so many advances in management, we are not better placed to understand excess
tourism except with use of concepts of time/calendars that show regional variation in climate and are
spiral. To this end, for 7 years, it was observed that the monsoon in Uttar Pradesh in northern India
did not arrive ‘on time’ as understood by the solar Gregorian calendar (the ‘arrival date’ being mid-
June); but arrived on time when seen from the north Indian calendar perspective (Vikram Samwat
calendar, as opposed to the Bengali or various south Indian calendars: these differ appreciably, being
all of them developed keeping both the lunar and the solar calendars, changing climate patterns, agri-
culture, and complex mathematical calculations, in mind; most holidays were originally ‘agricultu-
rally-marked’ change periods). These are themselves a valuable heritage that can tell us a lot about
climate change, but are frequently not referred to. So, from 2013 to 2019, despite the much talked
about climate change that has apparently affected India and its rain-fed agriculture, the monsoon
arrived as expected in the north Indian month of saawan (Shravan) in north India, although some-
times early (2013 and 2014) or sometimes late (2017, 2018, 2019) going by the Gregorian calendar.
Since tourism peaks in the summer season, just before the monsoon (or long, heavy rain period), for
religious tourist visitation to Uttarakhand, India (Table 1), which crossed the 1.87 million mark in
2017 (The Tribune, 2017), as well other tourists to hill resorts, a management plan should be able to
prevent catastrophes. So, what happened in 2013 and 2014, when thousands of tourists died and
thousands were stranded due to cloudbursts and landslides after heavy rains, can be prevented
8 S. SINGH

using predictions based on the north Indian calendar. Similar local ‘calendars’ exist all over the world
and can be used with greater creativity in thinking about and planning against ecological changes due
to ‘over-tourism,’ as also disasters due to climate change.
Yet, even these can give only a short glimpse into the future. Arguably, Butler’s model does not
work for so many destinations. So how do we account for its applicability in some cases, not apparent
in other cases? It may be that the pattern seen by Butler may have management implications in the
longer term and may be meaningful if evolution is investigated. Indeed, the patterns seen in Chap-
man and Light’s (2016) model and Choy’s (1992) examples, seem to indicate that Butler was in fact
talking about super-cycles of destination visitation (see Figure 1), which would actually even accom-
modate a rough common pattern seen in Choy’s cases, and is similar to that provided by Chapman
and Light (2016) – all of which would be more open to analyses as cases of tourist visitation rise and
fall, adjusted to regional time-scales, climate change and evolution. The operationalization of Butler’s
model would be commensurate with acknowledging the existence of sub-cycles, cycles and super-
cycles, respectively, over a legitimate period of economic history (at least 40–100 years, Figure 1)
to understand evolution. Only with these, local climate cycles, would one be able to explain that
while Butler’s model in toto may not be true in all cases, but is a near-depiction of some life-cycles
in the long run, or some cycles in the medium term. Apart from managing excess religious tourists to
Uttarakhand, India, a similar case can be seen in visitation to the Valley of Flowers National Park,
also in Uttarakhand, where management is essential for saving the Valley’s heritage through conser-
vation programmes, from excess tourists as well as climate change (Singh, 2016).

Conclusion
One reason for lack of application of TALC may be that Butler’s (1980) model follows ‘normal
science’ (i.e. an idealist pattern). This is the argument, for example, by Van Fossen and Lafferty

Figure 1. Tourism Area Evolution.

 JOURNAL OF HERITAGE TOURISM 9

(1998), who also cite research that holds that tourism carrying capacity and TALC are synergistic
only in post-hoc treatment, though not thus admitted (e.g. Getz, 1983; Martin & Uysal, 1990), or
incompatible, but only when stretching the Butler model (Getz, 1992). Others argue that TALC
and tourism carrying capacity concepts state the same problem differently (but only when history
is seen linearly: Singh, 2006; Singh, 2011). In any case, TALC is of little use in predicting change,
because it just presumes all change is in only one way (an S-curve) apart from the end.
Singh (2019b) has proffered a broad theory of human needs and a model of dialectics between
affective balance capacity (a balancing out of personal emotional fulfilment versus tourism’s effect
on social norms/cultural mores, done by both tourists and residents) and customer satisfaction bal-
ance capacity (of a destination’s businesses, managers, planners) to clarify the complex nature of
tourism area evolution (see also Dodds, 2019) along with tourism marketing. Yet, it is clear that des-
tination evolution is not linear, but marked by how well customer expectations are met with custo-
mer satisfaction or ‘authenticity of leisure,’ between which (expectations and satisfaction) there is
always a ‘lag’ or ‘gap.’ The reason behind the marked difference between tourism area life-cycle the-
ory and facts, is, as Getz (1992) and Van Fossen and Lafferty (1998) say, that the life-cycle model is
‘hypothetical’ (Getz) and ‘not theoretical’ (van Fossen and Lafferty).
Indeed, the ‘S’ curve, like ‘normal distribution’ shown in Statistics books, is not theory at all: it is a
hypothesis of how a ‘normal’ distribution of statistical figures ‘ought to look like,’ though almost
always not found in real populations (hence the need for complex calculations by statisticians to
‘accommodate reality,’ rather than the other way round). This conflict between statistical theory
(that numbers ‘follow patterns which can be understood completely with a method’ known as ‘Stat-
istics’) and the hypothesis (‘some numbers’ follow ‘set patterns’ which can be called ‘normal’ in
occurrence, but ‘a-normal’ patterns are not ‘abnormal’) can only be reconciled in tourism theory
if we look at tourism area evolution instead of ‘life-cycle,’ and think of spiral time. For that, we
need to look at tourism area evolution as part of changing natural heritage (geological and climatic
era), and human (social, cultural, and physical) evolution, and tourism as a response to changing
human needs and adaptation to change itself.
This would be natural only with a spiral concept of time, which also exists in nature in a concrete
way, as opposed to a ‘concept’: like the circular movement of the earth on its axis (night and day) and
the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun, in which the earth’s movement appears almost linear
(an arc seen from a very short perspective), yet spinning on its axis, hence making a spiral. But the
ellipse is not precise and fixed, but allows changing patterns that are exemplified by changes in chan-
ging seasons in various parts of the earth over a ‘year’ and also changes over hundreds or thousands
of years: warm periods in between cold periods in the Holocene. It is seen in the climatic history of
the earth, such as the long, warm era, the Mesozoic, during which the dinosaurs were the dominant
species (in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods), followed by a less warm period broken with Ice Ages
(the Holocene), and is now being studied under ‘climate change’ in the Anthropocene.
Since the earth’s climate as a whole has not followed a precise and linear, but a recurring pattern,
tourism evolution, too, may be best studied as human responses to their needs to adapt to various
environments and (natural and cultural) heritage, and as a tool for human evolution, guided by the
changing climates of various areas; and, hence, not linear, but largely spiral in the Holocene. This
would resolve the problem of how to implement ‘innovative’ methods to deal with tourism heritage
and changing climates, such as the ‘clumsy solutions’ suggested by Perry and Harvey (2015: pp. 272–
273, 275) and allow concerted action by practitioners in collaboration with planners and thinkers to
save cultural and natural heritage and yet allow tourism ‘that is as open and equitable as possible’
(Harvey & Perry, 2015, p. 15). This is especially important since ‘clumsy solutions’ to save heritage
(mostly ‘consumed’ by tourism, but should make locals equal stakeholders) are ‘inefficient’ and
‘expensive,’ but include ‘different sorts of expertise’; yet, only collective action of planners with des-
tination experts and locals, using a concept of spiral time that allows us to see continuity as well as
change (evolution), can release social action from ‘active power relations’ (Perry & Harvey, 2015, pp.
272–275) that direct or misdirect change.
10 S. SINGH

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Sagar Singh, former Honorary Editor of Tourism Recreation Research (Routledge), has written 40 research papers and
three books on tourism social science and management, including Shades of Green: Ecotourism for Sustainability (2004,
published by The Energy and Resources Institute), and Rethinking the Anthropology of Love and Tourism (2019), pub-
lished by Lexington Books, USA. A poet, story writer, social scientist, and environmental researcher, he has written
three books of poems (Sunshine After Rain, 2016, Days of Open Hand, 2017, and The Knowing Eye, 2019; a fourth,
Requiem, in press). He also writes computer algorithms for problems of sustainability. E-mail: sagar_66@hotmail.com

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