Economic And Environmental Impact Of The Tourism Carrying Capacity: A Local-Based Approach

Abstract

The design and the evaluation of sustainable tourism policies require involving all the actors in the decision-making process. One of the critical aspects at the regional level is the absence of a clear definition of instruments and methodologies able to involve all the actors and to meet different policy targets. The aim of this study is to assess the economic and environmental impact of the tourism carrying capacity by proposing a framework able to deal with multiple variables. To this end, a social accounting matrix is built for a local area composed by four municipalities within the Sardinia region (Italy), and then it is used as a reference frame to implement the extended multisectoral model. Such an approach will provide results, on visitors flow recorded in the Asinara National Park, in terms of value added and CO2 emissions changes.