Tourism carrying capacity reconceptualization: Modelling and management of destinations

Sustainability of tourism development in protected areas relies largely on the ability of destination management to harmonize the activities of visitors, local communities, entrepreneurs and other tourism actors with the pri-mary aim of nature and landscape protection. Based on conceptual analysis, the manuscript refines tourism carrying capacity theory and operationalizes it into a cohesive systems approach to evidence-based visitor management in protected areas. The proposed modified concept of tourism carrying capacity approaches the protected area as a destination system where the continuous determination, estimation, and attainment of the visitation optimum are the main problems to be solved. The overall aim is to construct a comprehensive desti-nation model which can be embedded into a decision-support system for visitor management. Testing of the proposed system, derived through an inductive process, has been initiated in the Czech Republic's protected area, for which a comprehensive destination model is being created.