Carrying Capacity Stephen F

Journal of Sustainable Tourism
ISSN: 0966-9582 (Print) 1747-7646 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsus20
Tourism Carrying Capacity: Tempting Fantasy or

Useful Reality?
Stephen F. McCool & David W. Lime
To cite this article: Stephen F. McCool & David W. Lime (2001) Tourism Carrying Capacity:
Tempting Fantasy or Useful Reality?, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 9:5, 372-388, DOI:
10.1080/09669580108667409
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669580108667409
Published online: 23 Nov 2009.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 1232
View related articles
Citing articles: 61 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsus20
Download by: [NHTV Internationale Hogeschool] Date: 07 April 2016, At: 01:39
Tourism Carrying Capacity: Tempting
Fantasy or Useful Reality?
Stephen F. McCool
School of Forestry, The University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA
David W. Lime
College of Natural Resources, University of Minnesota, St Paul,
Minnesota, USA
Downloaded by [NHTV Internationale Hogeschool] at 01:39 07 April 2016
Increased interest in the sustainability of tourism development initiatives has trig-

gered expanding concerns about the capability of both tourism destinations and
protected areasto accommodate recreationaluse. In many cases,planners and scientists
have turned to the concept of tourism or recreationcarrying capacity as a way of formu-
lating problem definitions and management actions. The concept of a tourism or
recreation carrying capacity evolved from a neo-Malthusian perspective of resource
limitations. The concept also carries a number of assumptions that are unsupported in
the real world and raises questions about the objectives of tourism and protected area
management actions. The conditions needed to establish a carrying capacity are rarely
achieved in the real world. There may be specific and limited situations where numer-
ical capacities may be appropriate (parking lots, etc.) but these are often a function of
investment. By changing the character of the question from ‘How many is too many?’ to
‘What are the appropriate or acceptable conditions?’, the issues giving rise to discus-
sions about carrying capacity are addressed. A variety of planning frameworks, such as
Visitor Experience and Resource Protection and Limits of Acceptable Change have
been developed to address issues of visitor impact.
Introduction
The growing interest in sustainable development and sustainable tourism has
been paralleled with an equally accelerating concern about the social and biophys-
ical effects of tourism. A burgeoning global economy in tourism coupled with the
transition of local communities away from traditionalresource extraction to tourism
have led to expanding concerns about the effectiveness of tourism as a tool to
advance the social,economic and environmental welfare of the people it is supposed
to benefit. At the same time, the appeal of the concept of carrying capacity as a para-
digm for addressing and limiting the amount of tourism development and use at a
destination has clearly emerged, leading to calls to establish carrying capacities in
terms of specific numbers of tourists over a specified time period. Such concerns are
deemed appropriate for sustaining local communities and their cultural and envi-
ronmental context; fears of irretrievably committing resources to specific uses are
increasingly important in a world of growing scarcity.
Recent textbooks and articles (e.g. Gartner, 1996; Inskeep, 1991; Saveriades,
2000; Wahab & Pigram, 1997) reflect this interest and have suggested that desti-
nations not be developed beyond their saturation points or ‘innate capacities’ for
tourism. To these authors and many others writers, planners and scientists
0966-9582/01/05 0372-16 $20.00/0 © 2001 S.F. McCool & D.W. Lime

JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM Vol. 9, No. 5, 2001
372
Tourism Carrying Capacity: Fantasy or Reality? 373
should specify numerical capacities to ensure that the environment, tourism

experiences and the community social fabric do not suffer unwanted con-
sequences. If degradation occurs, then management action is implemented to
return the area to within its numeric carrying capacity. By effectively reducing
the complex set of issues associated with tourism development to a scientifically
determined ‘magic number’, advocates of carrying capacity promise that techno-
logical solutions will be appropriate.
Yet, recent attempts to develop actual carrying capacities (e.g. Brown, Turner
et al., 1997, Saveriades, 2000) in terms of specific numbers of tourists or visitors,
raise significant questions for the decision-makers that establish policy, the
scientists that profess to define capacity, and the public that experiences the
effects of tourism. Examples of these questions include (1) What experiences are
being provided at a tourism destination? (2) What value system is represented in

carrying capacity estimates? (3) How much change from desired conditions is
acceptable? and (4) What tradeoffs among competing objectives need to be
made? These questions are customarily avoided in this growing literature. How
such questions are addressed in future ‘carrying capacity’ research carries impli-
cations concerning not only the validity of carrying capacity-based approaches,
but also for the management practices derived from them. These questions and
implications are not only operational in character but systemic and structural as
well. Operational responses to questions that are intrinsically systemic are inade-
quate to deal with the fundamental causative agents (Caldwell, 1990).
Continuing attempts to identify carrying capacities of tourism destinations in
the face of largely untested and often implicit assumptions compel a critical assess-
ment of both the scientific foundations for numerical carrying capacities and their
application in the real world as well. In this article, we point out flaws in the
approaches that purport to establish a numerical carrying capacity for tourism
destinations. In doing so, we are not advocating unlimited or careless tourism
development. Quite to the contrary, we suggest transforming the character of the
question to focus not on how many people can an area sustain, but rather on the
social and biophysical conditions desired or appropriate at a destination. Sustaining
these conditions is the heart of concerns over tourism impacts, saturation points
and carrying capacities. We argue that this recasting of the question provides
tourism planners and community representatives with a more powerful and
useful tool to address unacceptable tourism induced impacts than searching for
magic numbers implied in calls for identifying numerical carrying capacities.
In this assessment, we first recapitulate the development of the carrying
capacity concept as it applies to sustaining recreational and tourism settings.
This discussion is essential to understand how the concept has evolved, particu-
larly over the last three decades, and to appreciate the flaws and defects in
application of the concept to tourism and recreation settings. In this discussion,
we summarise some of the ways in which carrying capacity in both its abstract
and numerical application has been used in the recent tourism literature. We will
draw upon several examples from the literature, not to criticise specific scientists,
but to point to the fundamental belief systems about this topic that are commonly
at the foundation of carrying capacity research. Second, we review the principal
issues, mythologies and questions raised by attempts to specify numerical
carrying capacities. We do this because such research implies that capacities are
374 Journal of Sustainable Tourism
scientifically identified, when in fact they are the result of a series of normative
and often implicit judgements that are hidden in the analysis process and thus
not subject to public purview. We conclude our analysis by summarising a
conceptual approach developed over the last two decades that is scientifically
valid for addressing the complex issues raised in tourism development. This
approach moves us away from searching for numerical capacities to one that
focuses on sustaining acceptable, appropriate or desirable conditions for a
tourism development, attraction or region.
History of the Carrying Capacity Concept

An initial focus on numbers

The concept of carrying capacity was initially developed in the fields of range
and wildlife management and was based on the notion that an organism can
survive only within a limited range of physical conditions (Carey, 1993: 141):
‘The availability of suitable conditions for living determines the number of
organisms that can exist in an environment’. The question with which these
fields were confronted dealt with the physical capacity of a particular pasture,
range or wildland area to maintain over time the amount and quality of forage to
sustain a specific number of stock, whether domestic or wild. In those fields, the
issue initially was relatively straightforward then became more complicated as
scientists and managers began to understand how particular developments and
practices (e.g. fences, salt, water tanks, pasture rotation, grass seeding) could
enlarge the capacity of a particular area. It was quickly recognised that different
sized animals (e.g. deer, cattle) had different quantitative and qualitative forage
requirements, thus indicating that range carrying capacity was a function of land
owner objectives as well as characteristics of the environment.
Carrying capacity in a range management context is based upon questionable
neo-Malthusian assumptions that populations grow exponentially, but are even-
tually limited so growth occurs in a logistic pattern. Population growth then is
eventually limited by a variety of environmental factors (Seidl & Tisdell, 1999).
However, changes occurring in these environmental factors, biotic or abiotic,
caused by the population itself or by other factors and natural variation in the
environment indicate that a logistic determination of a single carrying capacity is
all but impossible. Seidl and Tisdell (1999: 401) conclude: ‘…the concept of
carrying capacity can only be calculated for deterministic and slightly variable
systems, and only for cases where behaviour and ecological relationships of the
species change slowly on the human time scale’. Thus, even in the case of the
animal populations that carrying capacity was originally designed to address,
the highly varying character of the environment, the non-linearly dynamic
nature of many cause–effect relationships and lack of knowledge introduce
considerable uncertainty into calculation of carrying capacities.
Many authors who promote the idea of establishing numerical carrying capac-
ities do so while acknowledging that values, ethics and politics play important
roles in their determination (e.g. Carey, 1993). These ethical and social consider-
ations have so much diversity and dissension that a singular number directed
toward sustaining a protected area cannot be developed.
Capacity as much more than numbers

In the past 10 years, there has been substantive criticism of the carrying
capacity concept as it applies to population growth. Price (1999) summarised a
variety of research on carrying capacity by stating: ‘We conclude that the concept
of carrying capacity is seriously flawed. Indeed, it may be no more than a
self-validating belief’. Other authors have raised additional arguments about the
practical utility of carrying capacity and its scientific foundations (Dhondt, 1988;
Mcleod, 1997; Roe, 1997), thus raising questions about its ability to serve as a
paradigm for managing tourism development.
Concerns about the ability of parks and protected areas to absorb tourists and
their impacts developed initially in the 1930s, but were interrupted by World
War II. Following large increases in visitation to national parks and forests in the
US during the 1950s, there were increased calls for managing the apparently
crowded conditions found there (Clawson, 1963). Increases in facility capability
in national park areas had occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but
little investment had been made over the ensuing 20 years. Because many early
recreation managers in the US had been trained not in park management but in
Figure 1 The figure schematically demonstrates three potential relationships

between use levels and amount of resulting biophysical and social impact.
Curve C represents a situation where the level of impact increases relatively
gradually to a particular region of the curve and then begins to accelerate
rapidly. If this relationship were to hold, landscapes could be characterised as
containing an intrinsic carrying capacity. Curve B represents a situation where
impacts are a linear function of use level. In this situation as use increases
impacts increase in some linear proportion. Curve A represents a situation
where impacts increase rapidly with small amounts of use, and then the rate of
increase decreases as use level rises
the forestry, wildlife and range sciences, the concerns about people and their
impacts were quickly described as an issue of carrying capacity: facilities and
resources simply could not accommodate burgeoning increases in demand
because of design and management limitations.
In the 1960s, the US Forest Service initiated several research projects to identify
carrying capacities for recreation. At this time, research and management implic-
itly assumed that use levels and impacts were related linearly, as shown
schematically in Figure 1B. However, the existence of an innate or intrinsic
carrying capacity would suggest a curvi-linear relationship between use and
impact (Figure 1C). Such a relationship, if documented, would indicate that
impacts rise slowly in response to recreational use and then reach a threshold
beyond which conditions deteriorate rapidly. This threshold area would then
represent the carrying capacity for tourism and recreation.

The early research on the question (Lucas, 1964; Wagar, 1964) suggested that
there appeared to be both biophysical and social carrying capacities, observa-
tions that carry on in today’s research. Wagar even argued that social capacities
would vary depending upon the motivations tourists sought during a visit to
wildlands, an argument similar to Carey’s (1993) implication that Maslow’s need
hierarchy would suggest a variety of human carrying capacities depending on
what needs should be addressed. Wagar presented a series of graphs that served
to hypothesise the relationship between recreation use level and ability to
achieve certain desired outcomes of the recreation experience, such as challenge,
solitude, and companionship. The curves were frequently different, suggesting,
in schematic form, potentially different capacities for a particular site or location.
A focus on management objectives

Following these initial efforts, a variety of researchers in the US engaged in
additional work in the late 1960s and 1970s that culminated in a series of observa-
tions about the carrying capacity issue (e.g. Frissell & Stankey, 1972; Lime, 1970;
Lime & Stankey, 1971; Stankey, 1973). These and other scientists suggested that
the objective for which an area was established was critical in determining
carrying capacity, thus suggesting that for any area, there were multiple carrying
capacities: ‘no single capacity can be assigned to an entire area’ (Lime, 1970, p. 9).
They also indicated that recreational use induces both quantitative and qualita-
tive changes in the environment, leading to the question of how much use and
what type of change would be acceptable – a question that could be best addressed
through understanding the objectives established. And, they suggested that
social capacity appeared to be a function of visitor motivations and expectations.
The accelerating growth of use on western US whitewater rivers for rafting
and kayaking stimulated a host of managerial attempts to establish carrying
capacities beginning with Grand Canyon National Park in 1972. The Park estab-
lished a capacity of 96,500 user-days for boater floating the Colorado River
through the Park. The capacity was based on the use level that had occurred in
1971, not some studied evaluation of the relationship between use level and
resulting impacts. This capacity was increased later to 169,500 following revi-
sions in the Park’s river management plan, but the limit and how it is
implemented remains contentious. Carrying capacities and the resulting policies
limiting the amount of recreation use were adopted by a variety of US national
park, wilderness and protected areas since that time, although their form and
implementation action varies substantially.
As knowledge and management experience grew, definitions of recreational
and tourism carrying capacity also evolved, from the initial two primary types
(biophysical and social) to include a ‘facilities’ capacity and others. Recreational
carrying capacity came to be defined as the amount of recreational use allowable
by an area’s management objectives. This definition leads to two fundamental
conclusions: (1) there is no such thing as an intrinsic or innate carrying capacity;
and (2) an area may have multiple capacities, depending upon what objective is
articulated for the area. Thus, an individual protected area – say a marine park –
may have a very low capacity if it is designed to provide opportunities for soli-
tude in a pristine setting; or a higher capacity, if the objective is to provide
opportunities that are more social in character and where there are fewer
constraints on the impacts caused by the recreating public. Obviously, there
could be multiple (and even an infinite number of) capacities for objectives
between these extremes. If one area can have multiple capacities, does the
concept of capacity have any managerial utility?
The search for a capacity, then, is highly dependent on selection of a specific
objective (Lime, 1970). This search, however, is constrained because many
protected area objectives are so broad or vague (e.g. ‘protect the resource’) that
they neither provide the specificity needed to provide clear direction for
management nor establish numerical carrying capacities. These vague objectives
can be interpreted in many different ways, leading again to many different
capacities. In addition, the process of articulating objectives and selecting among
them is a uniquely human and political process; the earth itself does not speak in
this process, and neither does science (although scientists may speak wearing the
hats of concerned citizens). If capacity is so dependent on objectives and if there
are many objectives leading to many capacities for the same area, then what role
could science play in informing this process?
The observation that carrying capacity – and the amount of change accept-
able – is dependent on objectives was a key advance in the development of the
field of recreation and tourism management. It forced managers and scientists to
be more explicit and specific about what objectives were in force in a specific
area. It also led to the realisation that development and choice of objectives is a
social, not a physical or biological, process. If so, then there is an important and
essential role for the public in this process – for the public provides the values and
ethics needed to develop objectives. The Frissell and Stankey (1972) paper
suggested that carrying capacity is the ‘amount of change in an area’ that is
permitted by an area’s management objectives. This argument means deter-
mining how much change is acceptable is a social judgement, informed by
science, but made in the milieu of political and ethical discourse (Krumpe &
McCool, 1997).
Science does play a critical role in this process. It provides the knowledge that
managers and citizens use in determining how much change is acceptable. It can
inform planning processes about the linkages and relationships that exist in an
area and with its context. It helps all of us understand the consequences of
choosing different alternatives. It forces the asking of key questions, but it does
not provide an authoritative answer to the question of ‘How many is too many?’
During the 1960s and 1970s research was beginning to show fascinating rela-
tionships between tourist use and impacts, both biophysical and social. This
relationship is non-linear as shown in Figure 1A. In general, this relationship
demonstrates that very little use leads to disproportionately large increases in
impacts (e.g. Frissell & Duncan, 1965; Godfrey & Godfrey, 1981; Hammitt & Cole,
1987; Leung & Marion, 2000). At higher levels of impacts, increases in use levels
lead to disproportionately smaller increases in impacts. This relationship indi-
cates that (1) impacts will appear whenever tourist use is permitted (thus,
degradation occurs and can be prevented only if no tourists are allowed); (2) for
areas with already high levels of visitation, reductions in use would have to be
particularly dramatic before impacts would be expected to be attenuated; and (3)
once impacts are severe, amelioration may be difficult and time-consuming to
achieve.
Limiting use to control unacceptable impacts

While this research was ongoing, managers of protected areas in the US
continued to implement limits – carrying capacities – on recreational use with the
hope that such limits would ultimately lead to a reduction in impacts. Those poli-
cies when implemented led to a large number of equity issues when rationing
systems were developed to ensure that capacities were not exceeded. For
example, when demand is higher than capacity, techniques (rationing) must be
implemented to determine which individuals will be allowed to enter the area.
The specific techniques involved (e.g., queues, reservation, lottery, pricing) carry
significant distributional consequences (Stankey & Baden, 1977). When imple-
mented, rationing systems give rise to a large number of practical and political
issues for which managers may not be particularly well-equipped to deal.
Attempts to identify numerical carrying capacities spawned a great deal of
research in wilderness and similar protected areas in the US. This interest was
frequently engendered by popular accounts of national parks being over-
crowded, and later by attempts to interpret the 1964 US Wilderness Act (Public
Law 88-577) mandate to provide ‘outstanding opportunities for solitude’ in an
area in which evidence of human use and influence is minimised. While this
mandate is uniquely American in context, interest in carrying capacities over-
flowed to other nations and settings as well. The outpouring of research and
other scholarly activity resulting from the need to interpret these phrases (in the
US and for other similar mandates) led to major increases in our knowledge
about what types of expectations people held about wilderness recreation expe-
riences, the consequences of alternative management actions on those experi-
ences, as well as the character, intensity and spatial distribution of biophysical
impacts associated with recreational use. In addition, the non-linear character of
the relationship between use level and impact was uncovered as well as several
significant variables that intervene in this relationship. These scientific findings
are well documented in the literature (Cole, 1987).
Of particular significance in these findings is that visitors carry multiple expec-
tations for tourist experiences, only some of which are related to use density. This
finding led to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an ‘average’ visitor,
suggesting that different types of visitors have differing perceptions of appro-
priate conditions. Residents living within tourist destinations also may vary in
their perceptions of appropriate conditions – for example, residents whose liveli-

hood is linked to the tourism industry are generally more supportive of it – also
indicating a diversity of views about the acceptability of social and biophysical
conditions. If both visitors and residents embrace a variety of perceptions of
appropriate or acceptable conditions, how does one choose which perceptions
‘count’ or count the most in establishing a carrying capacity?
New questions about carrying capacity development

This research led to several critiques and concerns about the validity of
carrying capacity approaches (Stankey & McCool, 1984; Wagar, 1974; Wash-
burne, 1982). These and other authors outlined a number of difficulties with
establishing numerical carrying capacities, particularly within a North Amer-
ican context of relatively high levels of resource management expertise,

adequate funding, and legal control over entry into national protected areas – a
combination of conditions rarely found elsewhere. Wagar (1974) criticised the
excessive reductionism employed in achieving a social or biophysical carrying
capacity. Washburne (1982) felt that establishing capacities without reference to
explicit standards for desired conditions detracts from the primary mission of an
agency, which is to decide what conditions are appropriate. Stankey and McCool
(1984) argued that the primary question underlying carrying capacity was not
‘How many is too many?’ but rather determining how much change from natural
conditions are acceptable given the goals and objectives for an area.
About the same time, widening concerns about the biophysical and social
impacts of larger scaled tourism development evolved, ultimately articulated in
discourse about sustainable tourism or ecotourism. A significant element of this
discussion has been calls for establishing carrying capacities for tourism, such as
those by Butler (1980). As with range and wildlife managers, it is a simple step
from discussing sustainability to calls for identifying limits and managing within
them. While some authors attempted to communicate the complexity of the
notion of carrying capacity (e.g. Getz’s (1983) six types of carrying capacities),
others continued to define capacity with a focus on numbers: ‘…the capacity is
dictated by how many tourists are wanted…’ (O’Reilly, 1986: 254).
Tourism researchers often differentiate between a capacity based on the host
community’s tolerance for tourists and the tourist’s perception of quality experi-
ences – the latter similar to the social carrying capacity studies conducted by
recreation researchers. For example, Mathieson and Wall (1982: 21) define
tourism carrying capacity partly in terms of ‘unacceptable declines in the quality
of experiences gained by visitors’. The difference in social carrying capacity
between recreation and tourism settings is that the former need not consider the
attitudes of host populations (Martin & Uysal, 1990). They argue that in both
types of destination area social carrying capacities would vary by lifecycle stage,
thus introducing another source of variance.
A rush of books and manuscripts in the late 1990s increased the call for estab-
lishing tourism carrying capacities (e.g. Butler, 1996). More recently, several
authors in the tourism area have identified numerical carrying capacities for
specific tourism destinations, or even entire nations. Brown et al., (1997) argued
that tourist use was above its ecological capacity for both the Maldives and the
nation of Nepal. Saveriades (2000) identified a tourism carrying capacity for a
destination region on Cyprus, based on perceptions of the region’s residents. De

Ruyck et al. (1997) used the concept of social carrying capacity for a beach setting
in South Africa.
These attempts have been based either on biophysical or social grounds, yet
contain hidden assumptions and judgements. For example, Saveriades (2000)
reported the current socially acceptable ratio of tourists to residents was 6.18 to 1.
However, he suggested (with little supporting evidence) this could be changed
to 5.20 to 1 (an increase in contact), yielding a daily social carrying capacity of
21,914 tourists for the region. While the author revealed the methodology for the
initial estimate – based on a mail-return questionnaire sampling of the region’s
residents – no such explicit statement was made for changing the ideal ratio. To
change the ratio requires that a normative value system be applied to the results,
one that is privileged in relation to the residents that participated in the survey.
In the end, however, such specifying numerical carrying capacities will fail to
control, reduce or mitigate impacts. Impacts are largely a function of tourist behav-
iour, developer practices and other variables. Each of these variables introduces
the uncertainty and stochastic environments that cannot be overcome by Malthu-
sian-based carrying capacity models (Seidl & Tisdell, 1999) that require stable or
static environments to be useful. Wagar (1974) argued, impacts become damage
only with a judgement of what an area ought to be, a position reiterated by Wight
(1998: 78): ‘The term “damage” refers to a change (an objective impact) and a value
judgment that the impact exceeds some standard…whether it [impact] is damage
depends on management objectives, expert judgments and broader public values’.
Impacts – or damage – may be reduced more effectively by changing tourist
behavior or management practices than by limiting use. For example, research has
shown that in pristine settings, focusing or concentrating use on small areas rather
than distributing it widely leads to fewer impacts. Focusing impacts in a smaller
area also allows for greater efficiencies in management.
The failures in the US to find carrying capacities led to searches for alternative
management paradigms. Several planning frameworks (see below) were even-
tually developed but all were based on reformulations of the problem, and these
reformulations – concerned with protecting certain conditions, rather than
finding numerical carrying capacities – served to significantly advance the
state-of-the-knowledge of tourism and protected area management.
Issues and Myths Raised in the Search for Numerical Carrying

Capacities
Despite the significant failures in application of numerical carrying capacity,
defined as avoidance of the fundamental causative relationships in production
of human-induced impacts, there is continuing interest in this paradigm of
management. Its appeal may be because of its apparent scientific objectivity and
simplicity. Yet, attempts to establish tourism carrying capacities for tourism
destinations raise a number of issues that are discussed below.
Is there is an innate capacity for tourism?

Several authors have defined capacity in such a way as to imply that the earth
has an innate or intrinsic capacity for recreational use and tourism development.
Tourism does cause biophysical and other types of impacts. Research noted
earlier documents that such impacts can occur with low use levels, and thus, if
decisions have been made to permit tourism, then some types of impact will
become apparent. The amount and character of those impacts, and whether they
impede ecological function or structure or they deal a blow to ecological integ-
rity, is a function of the management and planning system implemented.
Impacts can be managed, mitigated and controlled, but only to the extent that
policy-makers are willing to commit the necessary funding, planning, facility
and regulatory resources. Ultimately, impacts cannot be avoided, but they can be
managed based on established objectives or an understanding of the biophysical
or social conditions desired.
Biophysical impacts are a result of many variables – including use level, tourist
behaviour, types of tourist activities, management practices and investments,

industry practice and development, weather, season of use, location of use, soil,
geological, vegetation and topographical characteristics. The acceptability of
those impacts is a result of human judgements that consider the objectives for
which an area is managed or a destination is established, the values people place
on the environment, the agents causing the impacts, and normative evaluations
of the tradeoffs between the benefits from tourism development and the costs to
the environment. However, as Butler (1991) notes, achieving agreement on levels
of tourism development (a shadow for tourism impacts) is one of the most chal-
lenging problems confronting tourism planners.
Tourism carrying capacity is the maximum level of use before

degradation occurs
Often the literature defines capacity as the amount of use that is accommo-
dated without degrading resources. McIntyre (1993: 23) defines carrying
capacity as ‘the maximum use of any site without causing negative effects on the
resources, reducing visitor satisfaction, or exerting adverse impact upon the
society, economy or culture of the area’. Likewise, Inskeep (1991: 144) states that
‘establishing carrying capacities is based on the concept of maintaining a level of
development and use that will not result in environmental or sociocultural deteri-
oration …’ (emphasis added). And Wahab and Pigram (1997: 281) state that
carrying capacity ‘determines the maximum use of any place without causing
negative effects …’.
It is clear that these authors define tourism carrying capacity in a singular
numerical form determined by a point beyond which conditions deteriorate. As
noted above, any use of an area results in some change from existing biophysical
or social conditions, even if those changes are minimal and currently unmeasur-
able. Therefore, it is impossible not to have negative effects. To define carrying
capacity in terms that are essentially numeric is not only unrealistic, but inappro-
priate. The important point, however, is that tourism development, as with other
forms of economic activity, represents a set of tradeoffs. For example, economic
opportunity (increased labour income, enhanced entrepreneurial opportunity,
more jobs) may be improved while certain other factors (quality of life, environ-
mental integrity) may be impacted in negative ways.
The question then is what kind of tradeoffs are those affected willing to make?
For example, a ski area development may lead to a small decrease in water
quality (because of sewage treatment and runoff from parking lots and trails).
However, the ski area may infuse the local community with new income and jobs
that allow the community to finance water quality management and the resi-
dents to maintain the quality of life they have enjoyed without emigrating from
the community. Cole and Stankey (1997) indicate this represents a tradeoff
between two competing goals. One goal is ultimately constraining (water
quality) while the other is not. The ultimately constraining goal is compromised
until society feels it cannot be compromised any further. Once this happens, the
other goal is further compromised. Thus, runaway development is not permitted
because society will not tolerate further losses in water quality.
The relationship between use level and amount of impact is neither

simple nor predictable
The relationship between amount of use a location receives and resulting
impact is neither clear nor linear, as indicated earlier. A number of variables
intervene in this relationship, such as tourist behaviour, development and
management practices, site conditions, season of use and so on. In terms of social
conditions, the type of visitors interacting at a destination, location and timing of
encounters, behaviour of the visitors, motivations and expectations, cognitive
processes (product shift) influence the relationship between use and impact.
Such a variety of both observable environmental values and affective as well as
cognitive processes makes establishing a singular numerical capacity all but
impossible.
Planning is complicated further because the science needed to estimate the
effects of human activity at the larger temporal and spatial scales implied by the
notion of sustainability simply is not available. Moreover, temporal delays and
spatial displacement of effects are common and establishing a finite carrying
capacity for one area does not help because problems may be displaced to
another area. Problems may be displaced to other people and places with
varying capabilities to address them.
Rationing visitor numbers is inextricably linked to most carrying

capacity determinations
If a carrying capacity is proposed or established, the question of how limited
recreation opportunities are to be rationed develops. The carrying capacity
cannot be really separated from the use limit decision because one is linked to the
other. In the case of privately marketed opportunities, the market place is an effi-
cient, if not equitable, rationing mechanism. For publicly administered re-
sources, however, markets may not be appropriate or have failed, and other
methods of rationing, with varying distributional consequences must be chosen.
If scientists and planners compartmentalise these decisions, they are engaging in
unethical behaviour. If one could establish a carrying capacity, that capacity has
no meaning unless management organisations have the political will and ability
to develop mechanisms to limit tourist use. Upper level managers and supervi-
sors must make such commitments to be held accountable for allowing stan-
dards defining desired conditions to be violated (Hof & Lime, 1997).
Identification of a tourism carrying capacity confuses description with

prescription
The notion of a tourism or recreation carrying capacity often confuses
prescription with description. Wagar (1974: 274) states: ‘the term [carrying
capacity] also tends to obscure an essential distinction between technical issues
(involving what can be) and value choices (involving which of various possibili-
ties ought to be’ (emphasis in original). In this sense description involves what is,
prescription suggests what should be. Tourism carrying capacity represents an
allocation of scarce resources – protected areas, destinations – to recreational
opportunities that are density dependent. The descriptive components involved
in establishing a carrying capacity is mixed up with the prescriptive component
of allocation. These activities are not separated in time or space when estab-
lishing numerical carrying capacities. Allocation is intrinsically a judgemental

process that reflects the values that groups place on different things.
Carrying capacity implicitly assumes that social-biophysical systems

are stable
Ultimately, the notion of carrying capacity implicitly assumes that human-
environmental systems are stable – how else could a number that can be
sustained over time be developed? Instead, such systems are highly dynamic –
even non-linearly dynamic, and capacities would vary under different environ-
mental and social conditions. Thus, designating a carrying capacity could only
occur under an assumption that systems are static. If systems are dynamic, then
multiple capacities over time would have to be estimated, as well as the state of
the system predicted.
How we manage impacts from tourism development is a function of

how we frame the question
Ultimately, the issue of carrying capacity is one of how the problems of
tourism development, use and impacts are framed. Too often, planners attempt
to solve the wrong problem, solve solutions, or state the problem in such a way
that it cannot be solved (Bardwell, 1991). The concern about tourism develop-
ment and use is a set of doubts dealing with the amount and kind of impacts that
are generated, the ability of a culture to assimilate impacts, the acceptability of
impacts – both social and biophysical – the tradeoffs made under conditions of
uncertainty, the ability of those affected to participate in decisions, the institu-
tional capacity to monitor and manage impacts over time, and the will of the
political system to make often difficult and controversialdecisions. This complex
assortment of interacting issues cannot be successfully reduced to the question of
‘How many is too many?’
By reframing this question, we more closely get at the intention reflected in it:
What are the desirable, appropriate or acceptable conditions for this region, area
or tourism destination? Once that is decided, then we can discuss how different
management practices meet the tests of efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy
(Checkland & Scholes, 1990) that are important criteria in evaluating resolutions
to wicked problems. For a use limit policy to be efficient it must represent the
highest benefit–cost ratio of alternative practices. For a use limit policy to be
effective, it must actually control, limit or mitigate impacts. For it to meet the test
of efficacy, a use limit policy must contribute to attainment of larger goals, such
as the sustainability of the combined human-environment system. One of those
practices could be a policy that limits use to a certain level, but until systemic and
structural questions are addressed, operational ones – such as what practice to
deploy in a specific situation – must be dodged.
An Alternative to the Numerical-Based Carrying Capacity

Approach
A variety of authors have previously pointed to the limitations of numerical
tourism and recreation carrying capacity as an effective management paradigm
(Borrie, et al., 1998; Buckley, 1999; Lime, 1995; Lindberg, et al., 1997; Lindberg &
McCool, 1998; McCool 1978; McCool, 1989;McCool & Christensen, 1996; Stankey
& McCool, 1984; Wagar, 1974; Washburne, 1982). Those authors – which include
in many cases the current ones – suggest that reframing the question confronting
recreation and tourism development accompanied by a systematic deci-
sion-making process that makes value judgements explicit and separates
prescriptive activities from descriptive ones in time and space will encourage
dialogue about what is important and how to protect it. This type of activity is
likely to provide more protection than searching for an intrinsic and elusive
numerical carrying capacity that is ultimately based on unrealistic assumptions
and hidden value judgements. A system that achieves agreement first on overall
goals and second on the specific means to achieve those goals while emphasising
learning and consensus building would lead to far greater benefits to the local
community and protected area than one built on an illusion of scientific
objectivity.
Several such planning frameworks have been established and tested in a
variety of situations, including national parks, areas of sensitive environmental
concern, backcountry and wilderness areas and marine parks. These planning
frameworks include the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) (McCool, 1994;
Stankey, Cole et al., 1985), Visitor Impact Management (VIM) (Graefe, Kuss et al.,
1990), Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (US Department of the Inte-
rior, 1997), Visitor Activity Management Planning (VAMP) (Nilsen & Grant,
1998) and the Tourism Optimization Management Model (TOMM) (Manidis
Roberts Consultants, 1997). These frameworks have been used in a variety of
protected area situations but further application, testing and modification are
warranted. A major difference between these suggestions and carrying capacity
is that they are decision-making frameworks, not a scientific theory.
These frameworks share a number of characteristics. They focus first on
defining and obtaining agreement on important values and on desired or accept-
able conditions that are specific and socially acceptable. They identify the
particular issues that serve as barriers to achieving those conditions so that
management is focused. They include quantified indicator variables (e.g. the
number of groups encountered along a nature trail, labour income or the amount
of soil impact) that can be used to assess progress toward attainment of condi-
tions or objectives. They prescribe standards of quality that describe the amount
of change acceptable. These standards themselves are quantified (e.g. no more
than three groups encountered per day with other groups; a 5% annual increase
in labour income from sustainable tourism) and are a function of a consensus
developed out of the various social values involved in the area. These planning
systems provide opportunities to find alternative management actions that are
reasonably expected to ensure that standards are not violated, or if they are, to
bring unacceptable conditions back to acceptable. Moreover, managers imple-
menting these systems pledge that results of monitoring are evaluated and used
as feedback into the management system. By astutely combining scientific exper-
tise with local knowledge and managerial know-how throughout the planning
process, different forms of knowledge are acknowledged and used and the
public gains a legitimate, constructive foothold in the planning process.
Conclusion
The primary objective of sustainable tourism development concerns
enhancing the welfare of those affected by it, through increased economic oppor-
tunity, preservation of the local community’s cultural and natural heritage, and
an enhanced quality of life. In this sense then, sustainable strategies look to iden-
tifying and managing acceptable or desirable social and biophysical conditions –
the output of tourism development. Implementing a management strategy that
specifically identifies these conditions and establishes explicit standards of
quality will be more efficacious than relying on numerical carrying capacities.
Such capacities are oriented toward manipulating use levels that may or may not
be related to sustaining desired conditions. While in some cases carrying capaci-
ties for facilities (e.g. parking lots, theatres) may be identified, these capacities are
largely a function of investment.
Planning frameworks such as LAC, VERP or TOMM do not provide simple
answers to the difficult questions posed by tourism development and impact –
yet neither do attempts to establish numerical carrying capacities. Moreover,
these frameworks provide a way of thinking about and responding to these legit-
imate, yet difficult challenges. They are adaptable to a variety of situations. They
are not based on an apparent scientific theory linking use to impact. Neverthe-
less, these frameworks for thinking represent a significant reframing of the
questions confronting the communities, scientists and planners as they contem-
plate sustainable tourism development.
By reframing such questions, scientific expertise and publicly held knowledge
can contribute to both fundamental issues and resolution of the important ques-
tions surrounding impacts of tourism and recreation. Planning and management
is directed toward answers that are useful, while a wider array of management
practices may be identified as potential methods of resolving problems. Planning
in LAC, VERP or TOMM and other similar frameworks is not viewed as solely a
responsibility of the scientific and expert domain, but involves experienced
managers and an involved public as well. The dialogue that results emphasises
learning – to deal with uncertainty – and consensus building to ensure action.
It is now time to bury the concept of a numerical tourism and recreation
carrying capacity – and the search for the ‘magic numbers’ that such concepts
inevitably lead to. The variables that affect such determinations are too many to
model realistically; the continued use of the term suggests that magic numbers
can be found, the assumptions and tests which must be met never occur in the
real world, and the illusion that carrying capacity is a scientific question rather
than a moral choice confounds the problem and promises findings that cannot be
sustained. While the pursuit of carrying capacity has led to a large amount of
research that has been useful for management, its continued use as a method to
solve the problems of tourism development is inappropriate and reductionistic.
The concept of a tourism and recreation carrying capacity maintains an illusion
of control when it is a seductive fiction, a social trap, or a policy myth.
Our focus should, instead, be on deployment of frameworks and strategies
that determine which of many plausible futures are desirable, what social,
economic and environmental conditions are involved in tourism development,
the acceptability of the tradeoffs that would occur, and how people affected can
be given voice to articulate the concerns and values involved. While we could
search for a term to name this process, what is important is that we understand
what are the goals of tourism development, what the science says, and how we
can best manage given those considerations.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Professor Stephen F. McCool,
School of Forestry, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 54812, USA
(smccool@forestry.umt.edu).
References
Bardwell, L. (1991) Problem framing: A perspective on environmental problem-solving.
Environmental Management 15 (5), 603–12.
Borrie, W.T., McCool, S.F. et al. (1998)Protected area planning principles and strategies. In
K. Lindberg, M.E. Wood and D. Engeldrum (eds) Ecotourism: A Guide for Planners and
Managers. Volume 2 (pp. 133–54). North Bennington, VT: Ecotourism Society.
Brown, K., Turner, H.K. et al. (1997) Environmental carrying capacity and tourism devel-
opment in the Maldives and Nepal. Environmental Conservation 24, 316–25.
Buckley, R. (1999) An ecological perspective on carrying capacity. Annals of Tourism
Research 26 (3), 705–8.
Butler, R.W. (1980) The concept of tourist area cycle of evolution: Implications for the
management of resources. Canadian Geographer 24 (1), 5–12.
Butler, R.W. (1991) Tourism, environment and sustainable development. Environmental
Conservation 18 (3), 201–9.
Butler, R.W. (1996) The concept of carrying capacity for tourist destinations: Dead or
merely buried? Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research 2 (3), 283–92.
Caldwell, L.K. (1990) Between Two Worlds: Science, the Environmental Movement and Policy
Choice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Carey, D.I. (1993) Development based on carrying capacity: A strategy for environmental
protection. Global Environmental Change 3, 140–8.
Checkland, P. and Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems Methodology in Action. West Sussex, UK:
John Wiley and Sons.
Clawson, M. (1963) Land and Water for Recreation – Opportunities, Problems and Policies.
Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.
Cole, D.N. (1987) Research on soil and vegetation in wilderness: A state-of-knowledge
review. In R.C. Lucas (ed.) Proceedings – National Wilderness Research Conference: Issues,
State-of-Knowledge, Future Directions (pp. 137–77). Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service,
Intermountain Research Station.
Cole, D.N. and Stankey, G.H. (1997) Historical development of limits of acceptable
change: Conceptual clarifications and possible extensions. In Proceedings – Limits of
Acceptable Change and Related Planning Processes: Progress and Future Directions.
Missoula, MT: USDA Forest Service.
De Ruyck, M.C., Soares, A.G. et al. (1997)Social carrying capacityas a management tool for
sandy beaches. Journal of Coastal Research 13 (3), 822–30.
Dhondt, A.A. (1988) Carrying capacity: A confusing concept. Acta Oecologica 9, 337–46.
Frissell, S.S. Jr. and Duncan, D.P. (1965) Campsite preferences and deterioration. Journal of
Forestry 63, 256–60.
Frissell, S.S. Jr. and Stankey, G.H. (1972) Wilderness Environmental Quality: The Search for
Social and Ecological Harmony. Society of American Foresters Annual Conference,
Society of American Foresters.
Gartner, W.C. (1996) Tourism Development: Principles, Processes, and Policies. New York,
NY: Van Rostrand Reinhold.
Getz, D. (1983) Capacity to absorb tourism: Concepts and implications for strategic plan-
ning. Annals of Tourism Research 10, 239–63.
Godfrey, P.J. and Godfrey, M.M. (1981) Ecological effects of off-road vehicles on Cape
Cod. Oceanus 23, 56–67.
Graefe, A.R., Kuss, F.R. et al. (1990) Visitor Impact Management: A Planning Framework.
Washington, DC: National Parks and Conservation Association.
Hammitt, W.E. and Cole, D.N. (1987) Wildland Recreation: Ecology and Management. New
York, NY: Wiley.
Hof, M. and Lime, D.W. (1997) Visitor experience and resource protection framework in
the national park system: Rationale, current status, and future direction. In S.F. McCool
and D.N. Cole (eds) Proceedings – Limits of Acceptable Change and Related Planning
Processes: Progress and Future Directions (pp. 29–36). General Technical Report INT-371.
Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station.
Inskeep, E. (1991) Tourism Planning: An Integrated and Sustainable Development Approach.
London, UK: Routledge.
Krumpe, E. and McCool, S.F. (1997)Role of public involvement in the Limits of Acceptable
Change wilderness planning system. In Limits of Acceptable Change and Related Planning
Processes: Progress and Future Directions. Missoula, MT: USDA Forest Service Inter-
mountain Research Station.
Leung, Y. and Marion, J.L. (2000) Recreation impacts and management in wilderness: A
state-of-knowledge review. In D.N. Cole, S. McCool, W.T. Borrie and J. O’Loughlin
(eds) Wilderness Science in a Time of Change: Vol. 5. Wilderness Ecosystems, Threats, and
Management (pp. 23–48). Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research
Station.
Lime, D.W. (1970) Research for determining use capacities of the Boundary Waters Canoe
Area. Naturalist 21 (4), 9–13.
Lime, D.W. (1995) Principles of carrying capacity for parks and outdoor recreation areas.
Acta Envir. Univ. Comenianae 4–5, 21–8.
Lime, D.W. and Stankey, G.H. (1971) Carrying capacity: Maintaining outdoor recreation
quality. Recreation Symposium Proceedings (pp. 174–84). Upper Darby, PA: Northeastern
Forest Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service.
Lindberg, K. and McCool, S.F. (1998) A critique of environmental carrying capacity as a
means of managing the effects of tourism development. Environmental Conservation 25
(4), 291–2.
Lindberg, K., McCool, S.F. et al. (1997) Rethinking carrying capacity. Annals of Tourism
Research.
Lucas, R.C. (1964) The RecreationalCapacity of the Quetico-Superior Area. St Paul, MN: USDA
Forest Service Lake States Forest and Experiment Station.
Manidis Roberts Consultants (1997) Developing a Tourism Optimization Management Model
(TOMM), A Model to Monitor and Manage Tourism on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Surry Hills, New South Wales: Manidis Roberts Consultants.
Martin, B.S. and Uysal, M. (1990) An examination of the relationship between carrying
capacity and the tourism lifecycle: Management and policy implications. Journal of
Environmental Management 31: 327–33.
Mathieson, A. and Wall, G. (1982) Tourism: Economic, Physical and Social Impacts. Harlow:
Longman.
McCool, S.F. (1978) Recreation use limits: Issues for the tourism industry. Journal of Travel
Research 27 (2), 2–7.
McCool, S.F. (1989) Limits of Acceptable Change: Some Principles. Toward Serving Visitors and
Managing Our Resources. Waterloo, Ontario: Tourism Research and Education Centre.
McCool, S.F. (1994) Planning for sustainable nature-dependent tourism development:
The Limits of Acceptable Change system. Tourism Recreation Research 19 (2), 51–5.
McCool, S.F. and Christensen, N.A. (1996) Alleviating congestion in parks and recreation
areas through direct management of visitor behavior. In D.W. Lime (ed.) Congestion and
Crowding in the National Park System (pp. 67–83). St Paul, MN: Minnesota Agricultural
Experiment Station, University of Minnesota.
McIntyre, G. (1993) Sustainable Tourism Development: Guide for Local Planners. Madrid:
World Tourism Organization.
Mcleod, S.R. (1997) Is the concept of carrying capacity useful in variable environments?
Oikos 79, 529–42.
Nilsen, P. and Grant, T. (1998) A comparative analysis of protected area planning and
management frameworks. In S.F. McCool and D.N. Cole (eds) Proceedings – Limits of
Acceptable Change and Related Planning Processes: Progress and Future Directions (pp. 49–
57). Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station.
O’Reilly, A.M. (1986) Tourism carrying capacity: Concepts and issues. Tourism Manage-
ment (December), 254–358.
Price, D. (1999) Carrying capacity reconsidered. Population and Environment 21 (1), 5–26.
Roe, E.M. (1997)On rangeland carrying capacity. Journal of Range Management 50, 467–72.
Saveriades, A. (2000) Establishing the social carrying capacity for tourist resorts of the east
coast of the Republic of Cyprus. Tourism Management 21 (2), 147.
Seidl, I. and Tisdell, C.A. (1999) Carrying capacity reconsidered: From Malthus’ popula-
tion theory to cultural carrying capacity. Ecological Economics 31, 395–408.
Stankey, G.H. (1973) Visitor Perception of Wilderness Recreation Carrying Capacity. Ogden,
UT: Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service.
Stankey, G.H. and Baden, J. (1977) Rationing wilderness use: Methods, problems, and
guidelines. Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station.
Stankey, G.H., Cole, D.N. et al. (1985) The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) System for
WildernessPlanning. Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station.
Stankey, G.H. and McCool, S.F. (1984) Carrying capacity in recreational settings: Evolu-
tion, appraisal and application. Leisure Sciences 6 (4), 453–73.
US Department of the Interior (1997) VERP. The Visitor Experience and Resource Protection
(VERP) Framework. A Handbook for Planners and Managers. Denver, CO: Denver Service
Center, National Park Service.
Wagar, J.A. (1964) The carrying capacity of wildlands for recreation. Forest Science Mono-
graphs 7, 1–23.
Wagar, J.A. (1974) Recreational carrying capacity reconsidered. Journal of Forestry 72 (5),
274–8.
Wahab, S. and Pigram, J.J. (eds) (1997) Tourism, Development and Growth: The Challenge of
Sustainability. New York, NY: Routledge.
Washburne, R. F. (1982) Wilderness recreation carrying capacity: Are numbers necessary?
Journal of Forestry 80, 726–8.
Wight, P.A. (1998) Tools for sustainability analysis in planning and managing tourism
and recreation in the destination. In C.M. Hall and A.A. Lew (eds) Sustainable Tourism:
A GeographicalPerspective(pp. 75–91). Harlow, Essex, UK: Addison Wesley Longman.

Carrying Capacity Stephen F

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Carrying Capacity Stephen F

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

ISSN: 0966-9582 (Print) 1747-7646 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsus20

Tourism Carrying Capacity: Tempting Fantasy or

Stephen F. McCool & David W. Lime

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669580108667409

Published online: 23 Nov 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1232

View related articles

Citing articles: 61 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

Increased interest in the sustainability of tourism development initiatives has trig-

0966-9582/01/05 0372-16 $20.00/0 © 2001 S.F. McCool & D.W. Lime

should specify numerical capacities to ensure that the environment, tourism

being provided at a tourism destination? (2) What value system is represented in

History of the Carrying Capacity Concept

An initial focus on numbers

Capacity as much more than numbers

Figure 1 The figure schematically demonstrates three potential relationships

represent the carrying capacity for tourism and recreation.

A focus on management objectives

Limiting use to control unacceptable impacts

their perceptions of appropriate conditions – for example, residents whose liveli-

New questions about carrying capacity development

ican context of relatively high levels of resource management expertise,

destination region on Cyprus, based on perceptions of the region’s residents. De

Issues and Myths Raised in the Search for Numerical Carrying

Is there is an innate capacity for tourism?

behaviour, types of tourist activities, management practices and investments,

Tourism carrying capacity is the maximum level of use before

The relationship between use level and amount of impact is neither

Rationing visitor numbers is inextricably linked to most carrying

Identification of a tourism carrying capacity confuses description with

lishing numerical carrying capacities. Allocation is intrinsically a judgemental

Carrying capacity implicitly assumes that social-biophysical systems

How we manage impacts from tourism development is a function of

An Alternative to the Numerical-Based Carrying Capacity

You might also like