Ski – resort and regional development: profile of visitors ... - E-Journal

The carrying capacity of mountainous tourist areas: the case of plastira’s lake
noticed throughout the whole year with a percentage of about 18% in the month of August,
whereas the average time of staying of the visitors was 2.0 days for locals and approximately
1.5 for foreign visitors (GTO, 2003).
THE TOURISM CARRYING CAPACITY OF AN AREA
The large increase of demand for recreation internationally as well as in Greece over the last
decades has caused the administrators’ concerns regarding the extents of recreation, due to
proofs that the recreation activities downgrade the natural environment. Moreover, the increased
demand of recreation has as a result the reduction of the visitors’ satisfaction. Consequently,
the information of taking the suitable measures is necessary to avoid these problems. This
kind of information is related to the idea (concept) of carrying capacity which is the connection
between supply and demand of recreation. The idea of capacity is very important in the
management of natural resources, while its origin is biological and has been connected closely
with the idea (concept) of sustainability.
In the recreation sector the significance of carrying capacity began to be taken into consideration
mainly after the 1960s. In 1960, in the outdoor recreation plan of California it was placed as
one of its basic hypothesis that each natural area of recreation has the maximum capacity
(number of individuals in the unit of surface per day and season). When the area is used
beyond its capacity, the character and the quality of natural resources changes, is downgraded
or destroyed.
The main approaches of carrying capacity are: ecological, social or psychological or aesthetics,
natural and economical (Trakolis, 2003). In the ecological approach it is defined as the ability
of natural resources and ecosystems to support tourism development. In the social or
psychological approach the visitors’ pleasure/enjoyment is used as measure/limit for the
tourism development in a region, while in the economic it is used as the limit of equation of
marginal cost with the marginal profit that results from the tourism development for the area.
The significance of tourism carrying capacity of an area is associated with (a) the ability of
a tourism destination to absorb the tourism development before the negative results become
perceptible by the host community and (b) the level of tourism development beyond which
the particular destination ceases to attract and to satisfy the tourists. Stankey (1981) and Baud-
Bovy (1977) report as tourism carrying capacity the number of periods of use that an area can
offer for recreation (each year) without causing permanent biological and natural destruction
of the ability of the area to support recreation and without a significant weakening of the
quality of the recreation experience.
World Tourism Organization refers as carrying capacity of a tourist resort, "the maximum
number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing
destruction of the physical, economic and socio – cultural environment and an unacceptable
decrease in the quality of the visitor’s satisfaction (WTO, 1981)".
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