Research and analysis on sustainable tourism - Central Europe

High
REGULATION
Low
Figure 4 The Weaver model - destination development scenarios
Deliberate Alternative Tourism
(DAT)
Circumstantial Alternative
Tourism
(CAT)
Sustainable Mass Tourism
(SMT)
Unsustainable Mass Tourism
(UMT)
Low High
INTENSITY
Source: Weaver D. (2000), “A broad context model of destination development scenarios”, in Tourism
Management, n. 21, pp. 217-224
The target of LISTEN project is to define the most effective <strong>and</strong> efficient tools for sustainable tourism
development to move from CAT (or absence of tourism) to DAT or SMT.
In any case (DAT or SMT), it’s necessary to maintain the carrying capacity limits. Moreover, for
SMT it would entail some modification of mass tourism characteristics to obtain desirable outcomes
indicative of sustainability, such as higher level of local control, retention of a mainly midcentric
clientele <strong>and</strong> encouragement of vernacular architecture 2
1.2.2. Tourism Carrying Capacity
The carrying capacity in tourism planning is the maximum acceptable level of tourist development in
an area <strong>and</strong> the growth limits an area can accommodate without violating environmental, social <strong>and</strong>
economic capacity goals (Figure 5). It studies all the tourism impacts on a territory <strong>and</strong> is the base of a
sustainable development to be adopted by a destination, <strong>and</strong> therefore it is site specific <strong>and</strong> use
specific.
2 See Weaver’s article.
This project is implemented trough the CENTRAL EUROPE programme co-financed by ERDF
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