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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2020) | Viewed by 47027

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Harry Coccossis

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Guest Editor

Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, 1 Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece
Interests: tourism; environmental planning; regional development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tourism, as a dynamic activity, has acquired an international attention as to its opportunities for development but also its potential negative impacts on the economy, society and the environment, particularly at the local destination level. Of particular concern is how much growth is acceptable and whether the impacts may exceed the capacity of local systems to maintain a balance in a long-term perspective. In this context the concept of carrying capacity has been developed and it is extremely interesting to explore its development and use in typical cases of potentially excessive growth whether in natural areas or cultural sites or even cities and islands of special significance.

This special issue intends to explore the development of the concept of carrying capacity, the various perspectives followed, its intricate relationship to sustainability as well as the experience of using the concept in a variety of tourist destination types and the processes of decision-making in using it in the context of sustainable development.

Of particular interest is a contemporary pespective reflecting the growing concerns with overtourism in many types of destinations worldwide as well as potential effects of widely spreading practices of circular economy potentially affecting perceptions and practices of carrying capacity issues in tourism development planning.

Prof. Dr. Harry Coccossis
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Limits to tourism growth
Carrying Capacity
Sustainable tourism
Overtourism
Tourism impacts

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 1832 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analysis of Early Warning Spatial and Temporal Differences of Tourism Carrying Capacity in China’s Island Cities

by Fang Ye, Jaepil Park, Fen Wang and Xihua Hu

Sustainability 2020, 12(4), 1328; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041328 - 12 Feb 2020

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3227

Abstract

Tourism is the leading industry of island cities and the tourism carrying capacity is of great significance to the sustainable development of cities. This paper adopts the state-space model to construct an early warning indicator system for tourism carrying capacity from three aspects: nature, economy, and society, explores the early warning status, and spatial and temporal differences of tourism carrying capacity in Chinese island cities, and makes use of the BP(Back Propagation) neural network model to predict the development trend of early warnings. The results show that (1) from 2012 to 2018, the early warning status of China’s island cities’ tourism carrying capacity is generally on the rise, the natural carrying capacity system’s early warning situation has deteriorated, which is in a state of severe warning interval. The economic carrying capacity and social carrying capacity are on the rise, and the warning degree is from the super warning interval to the severe warning interval and then to the moderate warning degree. The forecast of the overall tourism carrying capacity early warning index from 2019 to 2021 presents an upward trend and is in the moderate warning interval. (2) The tourism carrying capacity early warning in China’s island cities shows a large spatial and temporal difference and the early warning values of each island city are different. The early warning value of Putuo tourism carrying capacity always ranks first, and Changdao has the worst performance. (3) In accordance with the contribution status of the subsystem to the total system, the Chinese island cities show regional differences in the northern, central, and southern area, showing two forms of pressure cities and pressure-carrying cities. The government can adopt different policies and measures in accordance with different characteristics of human environmental activities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Tourism Carrying Capacity)

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15 pages, 294 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Venice and Overtourism: Simulating Sustainable Development Scenarios through a Tourism Carrying Capacity Model

by Dario Bertocchi, Nicola Camatti, Silvio Giove and Jan van der Borg

Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 512; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020512 - 9 Jan 2020

Cited by 80 | Viewed by 25233

Abstract

Overtourism problems, anti-tourist movements and negative externalities of tourism are popular research approaches and are key concepts to better understand the sustainable development of tourism destinations. In many of the overtourism narratives, Venice is considered to be one of the most relevant cases of overtourism and therefore has become a laboratory for studying the different conflicts that emerge when tourism numbers continue to grow and the quality of the tourism flow continues to decline. This article is therefore focusing on Venice and on one of the possible solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism represented by the concept of a tourist carrying capacity (TCC) in an urban destination. The aim of this paper is to discuss alternative methodologies regarding the calculation of the TCC, and to apply a fuzzy instead of a ‘crisp’ linear programming model to determine the scenarios of a sustainable number of tourists in the cultural destination of Venice, looking for the optimal compromise between, on the one hand, the wish of maximizing the monetary gain by the local tourism sectors and, on the other, the desire to control the undesirable effects that tourism exerts on a destination by the local population. To solve the problems related to tourism statistics and data availability, some uncertainty in the parameters has been included using fuzzy numbers. The fuzziness in the model was introduced on the basis of questionnaires distributed among both tourists and residents. By applying the fuzzy linear programming model to the emblematic case of Venice, it was shown that this approach can indeed help destinations to understand the challenges of sustainable tourism development better, to evaluate the impact of alternative policies of overtourism on the sustainability of tourism, and hence, to help design a strategy to manage tourist flows more adequately Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Tourism Carrying Capacity)

20 pages, 1508 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Shifting Towards Sustainable Tourism: Organizational and Financial Scenarios for Solid Waste Management in Tourism Destinations in Tunisia

by Wassim Chaabane, Abdallah Nassour, Sabine Bartnik, Agnes Bünemann and Michael Nelles

Sustainability 2019, 11(13), 3591; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133591 - 29 Jun 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 7651

Abstract

Tourism in Tunisia generates large amounts of solid waste, especially during the summer, and doubles the amount in most big tourism cities like Hammamet, which makes its management more complicated. Municipalities lack the financial means to ensure sustainable solid waste management (SWM) in tourist areas and need an intervention from all actors to reduce financial and technical pressures and implement sustainable solutions. This paper presents a descriptive research method that focuses on an analysis of the current SWM concept in tourism areas in Tunisia and proposes new sustainable organizational and financial models. These are based on the collaboration of different stakeholders at both national and local levels; and supported by extending the responsibility of the producer through the creation of a new system operator to take charge of the organization and financing of packaging disposal and recycling activities. In addition, the extension of the recovered material for recycling through extended producer responsibility (EPR) could support the system. The performance of current SWM shows that it has failed to ensure the cleanliness of tourism destinations is sustainable. Tunisia generates 2.8 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW), between 20% to 30% of which are recyclable materials. The current system for packaging in Tunisia (ECO-Lef) only collected 3400 tons in 2018 compared to 15,800 tons in 2010, and the total recycling rate in the country does not exceed 5%, which makes the waste management system inefficient and unsustainable. Proposed solutions should be supported by legal and technical interventions, such as waste prevention, minimization, sorting at source, and the provision of education programs for citizens and tourism establishments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Tourism Carrying Capacity)

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11 pages, 593 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Tourism Impacts Continuity of World Heritage List Inscription and Sustainable Management of Hahoe Village, Korea: A Case Study of Changes in Tourist Perceptions

by Soonki Kim

Sustainability 2019, 11(9), 2573; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092573 - 4 May 2019

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3846

Abstract

This study examines the World Heritage List inscription’s tourism impact continuity through Hahoe Village’s tourists’ perception changes between 2014 and 2018, and it tries to verify the direction of future management and development plans for a sustainable community. Of all the perceptions verified in this study, two noteworthy issues, such as (1) World Heritage as a tourists’ brand and (2) future management of Hahoe Village as a World Heritage Site for maintaining brand equity, are discussed. In conclusion, the title “World Heritage” has excelled in its role as a tourism brand. Based on this role, the immediate outburst of tourism after the World Heritage List inscription affected Hahoe Village. However, even though the title World Heritage is a powerful brand that has great effect on the tourism industry, it still needs appropriate management to maintain brand equity. In the case of World Heritage, the target object of management is located at a trade-off point of interests between preserving heritage value and improving service convenience for tourists. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Tourism Carrying Capacity)

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13 pages, 755 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pro-Environmental Intentions among Food Festival Attendees: An Application of the Value-Belief-Norm Model

by Woo-Hyuk Kim and Kyung-Sook Kim

Sustainability 2018, 10(11), 3894; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10113894 - 26 Oct 2018

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5834

Abstract

Although festival organizers have significantly increased their adoption of green practices, there has been relatively little research on the pro-environmental decision-making process in festival settings. Drawing from the value-belief-norm-theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the pro-environmental decision-making processes of attendees of eco-friendly food festivals. A structural analysis of responses collected from 601 surveys revealed that affective triggers and personal norms played critical roles in the development of respondents’ pro-environmental intentions in festival settings. This study provides discussions and implications for research and practices related to green festivals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Tourism Carrying Capacity)

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