Goa has been witnessing a relentless surge in the influx of domestic tourists in recent times. The state’s tourism stakeholders have greeted this positive trend with a feeling of elation accompanied with trepidation over its sustainability.
The frisson is mainly due to their concern for Goa’s ecology or ecosystem, which is being threatened by uncontrolled tourism. For some time now, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has been propounding ‘tourism carrying capacity’ for optimal or sustainable tourism of a tourist destination.
The term was first formally introduced by the WTO in its work report in 1978-79. The UN body defines tourism carrying capacity as: “the maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing destruction of the physical, economic, socio-cultural environment and an unacceptable decrease in the quality of visitors' satisfaction”.
It’s time Goa’s law makers and authorities regulate and manage tourism development in the state to prevent excessive strain on its environment
It’s time Goa’s law makers and authorities took this concept seriously and used it as a tool to regulate and manage tourism development in the state to prevent excessive strain on its environment, cultural identity and tourism experience.
Tying the state’s tourism to its carrying capacity will also help it realise its real value rather than devaluing it through overtourism. The concept is especially relevant to Goa because of its tiny size of 3700 sq km.
The state’s projected inflow of visitors for last year is reportedly expected to shoot up around 30 per cent from the pre-pandemic level in 2019. Not all tourist arrivals are translating into higher revenues for the tourism sector but they end up putting a strain on Goa’s fragile ecology.
The UNWTO has predicted the number of international tourists to jump to 1.8 billion by 2030 from 1.46 billion in 2019.
This may seem like good news in terms of employment, infrastructure and revenue for tourist hubs but it comes with the downside of ecological degradation, air and water pollution and dilution of local culture and tradition of a destination.
Not all tourist arrivals are translating into higher revenues for the tourism sector but they end up putting a strain on Goa’s fragile ecology.
With not many popular beach destinations in the country, Goa takes a huge load of the country’s beach tourists. The state can use carrying capacity assessment as tool to protect and regulate its tourism activity to strike a balance between tourism development and environment preservation.
Simplistically, the carrying capacity of a tourist area can be computed relative to the number of visitors frequenting it per day.
This number is be taken as constant and its impact can be determined by the relation between the rate and quality of impact and acceptability of the change caused by it.
The aspects usually considered while working out the carrying capacity of a place include tourism capacity, landscape, climate, ecological capacity, local resources, population size, economic structure, cultural and local heritage, available manpower and other such factors.
The maximum capacity of a destination can be assessed by evaluating its tourism carrying capacity, basic carrying capacity, potential carrying capacity and real carrying capacity. This assessment can be effectively used as input for development of tourism policy by the government.