Estimating tourism social carrying capacity

The paper proposes a novel method of measuring the social carrying capacity threshold by using measures of subjective well-being. In particular, we show that there exists an inverted u-shaped relationship between subjective well-being and tourism intensity. Consequently, social carrying capacity can be estimated as the level of tourism intensity corresponding to the area from which the subjective well-being starts to decrease. The approach proposed operationalizes the concept of social carrying capacity and allows for cross-space and time-series comparisons of the levels of carrying capacity, taking into considerations other concurring factors. Such proposal is useful for policy makers to guide their decisions on tourism policy design. The method allows for the use of panel data models being based on longitudinal data.