Capacity to Absorb Tourism: An Assessment for Sustainable Tourism Management of Gulmarg Biosphere Reserve Jammu and Kashmir-India
Keywords:
Carrying capacity, Gulmarg, Limiting factor, Tourism ManagementAbstract
Gulmarg is a beautiful meadow and most popular tourist place of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The rapid but unplanned tourism activities have been creating various social and ecological concerns. If appropriate planning measures are not derived from the consideration of the carrying capacity of this place, the destination will be overloaded, tourism quality will be degraded and therefore the benefit obtained from tourism activities will be reduced. This paper presents the tentative establishment of a method to calculate the tourism carrying capacity of the Gulmarg biosphere reserve. It was found that carrying capacity of the place is 948 visits / day or 341400 visits per year. This estimation can be used to regulate the tourist flow to the place so that its natural environment can be saved from further degradation and the place may carry on its tourism base on sustainable way.
References
Batacharya, A.K;and Shanker,T. (2007). Estimating the total carrying capacity of protected areas with respect to tourism activities: A case study of Bandhavgarh National Park,M.P-India: In: Bhattacharya, A.k.(Ed.), Forestry for next decade-managing thrust areas.Concept Publishing House, New Delhi vol.1, 211-220
Bishop,A; Fullerton,H and Crawford,A.(1974). Carrying capacity in Regional Environmental Management. Government Printing Office Washington D.C.
Ceballos-Lascura´in, H.(1996). Tourism, ecotourism and protected areas: The state of nature-based tourism around the world and guidelines for its development. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK: IUCN.
Cifuentes, A.M. (1992). Determinacion de Capacidad de Carge Turistica en Areas Protegidas CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica.
Getz,D.(1983). Capacity to absorb tourism. Concepts and Implications for strategic planning. Annals of Tourism Reasearch, vol.10(2), 239-263.
Hens, L. (1998). Tourism and Environment, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.
Johnson,P and Thomas,B.(1994). The notion of capacity in tourism: A review of issues. In cooper,C.P and Lockwood,A.(eds).Progress in Tourism, Recreation and Hospitality Management, vol.5, 112-120. Wiley:Chichester.
Manning,R.E; Lime,D and Hof,M.(1996).Social Carrying capacity of natural areas: Theory and applications in the national parks. Natural Areas Journal, vol.16(2), 118-127
Nghi,T,Lan,N.T,Thai,N.D and Thanh,D.X.(2007). Tourism carrying capacity assessment for Phong Nha Ke Bang and Dong Hoi, Quang Binh province: VNU Journal of Sciences vol.23, 80-87.
O’Reilly,A.M(1986). Tourism carrying capacity, concepts and issues. Tourism Management vol.7(3), 254-258.
Pasko,G.(2016).Carrying Capacity Assessment- An essential tool for sustainable tourism development in coastal areas of Albina. European journal of Economics and Business Studies vol.2(1),164-171.
Schneider.D.(1978). The carrying capacity concept as planning tool.American Planning Association Chicago.
Sharma,R.(2016). Evaluating total carrying capacity of tourism using impact indicators. Global J. Environ. Sci. Manage, vol.2(2) 187-196.
Shazia Lone, Fayaz.A. Lone and Malik Asif. (2013). Carrying Capacity Assessment For The Promotion of Ecotourism in Bangus Valley: A Future Tourist Destination OF J&K-India. International Journal of Scientific Research, vol.2(1) 187-188.
