How to determine the tourism carrying capacity in a Thermal SPA?

Resumo

Thermalism (Spring SPA Industry), framed within health and well-being tourism, can contribute to the regeneration of certain tourist destinations and to reducing regional asymmetries in less developed locations. However, growth above a certain level can lead to a deterioration of available resources and a decrease in the quality of the visitor's experience. 

To help control the disproportionate growth of villages and to contribute to sustainability of tourism activity, the determination of tourist carrying capacity is used. However, most published studies analyse this topic in theoretical terms and few studies present and apply methodologies to calculate this indicator (Neves & Eusébio, 2021). Carrying capacity for the World Tourism Organization (UNTWO, 2018) represents the largest number of individuals who can visit a given tourist destination, simultaneously, without causing physical, sociocultural and/or economic damage, without decreasing, to the point of becomes unacceptable, the quality of visitor satisfaction in relation to the experience. Tourist carrying capacity is also the capacity that a certain environment can support without losing the characteristics of its originality or having its integrity threatened (Pires, 2005), which points in the same direction. If this level is exceeded, deterioration of resources, less visitor satisfaction and adverse impacts on local society, culture and economy may occur (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996).

In this sense, the objective of this study is to achieve the tourist load capacity of a thermal resort, in an unprecedented approach and cantered on an active thermal resort.