Analysis of the methodology created by Miguel Cifuentes concerning tourism carrying capacity

Abstract

Many researchers in the tourism sector have used the methodology of carrying capacity. The basic principle is to establish a maximum number of visitors in some place in order to minimize the impact of tourism. However, this methodology is incomplete as it only relates the impacts of tourist activity to the number of visitors, without considering some of the subjective and qualitative aspects of the effects of tourism. This research demonstrates the unscientific nature of this methodology and stresses that limiting the number of visitors to a locality is only one method to control the impacts of tourism.