Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment for the St.

Martin Island

Dr. Syed Rashidul Hasan1, Md. Kamrul Hassan 1 and Md. Saiful Islam 1
1 Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
(hassan_bd26@yahoo.com)

ABSTRACT
Natural environment, biologically diverse habitats, and indigenous culture of destination places are the
key attractions for the tourists, and often they help create mass tourism. But tourism saturation
ultimately causes damage to these key assets for tourism, and finally eventual loss of revenues arising
from a collapse in tourism arrivals becomes permanent. To avoid this, tourism development and
management should be based on the recognition of the limits of a destination. The indicator of Tourism
Carrying Capacity Assessment (TCCA) can be particularly relevant to this purpose. In fact, it gives an idea
of the entrance of tourists that can be accepted at a destination while considering the capacities of some
components (basically physical, environmental, ecological economic, and socio-cultural,) of the local
tourism system. The St. Martin’s Island, the only coral island of Bangladesh, is an example of the
phenomena. In this work, concept of TCC and its application in tourist destination have been described
first. Furthermore, carrying capacity of some tourism activities in the Saint Martin’s Island was calculated
using mathematical model. To calculate carrying capacity of some tourism activities in the Saint Martin’s
Island, the formulae of “Cifuentes” and “Ceballos – Lascurain” have been used.

Keywords: tourism carrying capacity, sustainability, limiting factors

1.0 Introduction

Tourism carrying capacity is often found to be discussed, thought, calculated, and also
implemented in a tourist destination, as everything has a capacity that it can tolerate or afford,
beyond which it cannot serve. As a result, tourist destinations must have their carrying capacity
assessed and managed accordingly with a view to protecting them from getting exploited.

In 1981, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) proposed a definition of tourism carrying
capacity as follow: "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". Luc Hens (1998) defined the
tourism carrying capacity as "The maximum number of people that use tourism site without
unacceptable effect on environmental resources while meeting the demand of tourists".

The St. Martin Island, the only coral island of Bangladesh, is suffering from so many physical,
social, economic and ecological problems. As a result, for the sustainable tourism development,
carrying capacity assessment is often considered one of most effective ways to protect the
destination physically, socially, culturally and ecologically- as it covers all of these parameters.

2.0 Background of the Study

A destination becomes a tourist attraction because of its natural beauty. Tourists visit the place
to touch the nature, but nature must not be irritated. The number of tourists is a factor that
must hamper the nature and that’s why CCA is important. CCA limits the tourists in a confined
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

number that the overall natural, social, economic and ecological circumstances can tolerate
without minimizing the tourist satisfaction. St. Martin’s Island has become one of the most
popular tourist destinations in Bangladesh. As a result, the St. Martin Island, the only coral
island of Bangladesh, is suffering from so many physical, social, economic and ecological
problems.

The appeal of the concept of carrying capacity as a paradigm for addressing and limiting the
amount of tourism development and use at a destination has clearly emerged, leading to calls to
establish carrying capacities in terms of specific numbers of tourists over a specified time
period. Such concerns are deemed appropriate for sustaining local communities and their
cultural and environmental context; fears of irretrievably committing resources to specific uses
are increasingly important in a world of growing scarcity.

3.0 Objectives

Good beaches are worth billions of tourist dollars and degraded beaches are worth little (Clark,
2005). The main objective of this paper is to assess the tourism carrying capacity of the St.
Martin’s Island.

For that purpose, specific objectives of the study are-

a. Assessing the carrying capacity of the Saint Martin’s Island, Bangladesh (defining the
optimum allowed number of people that should be allowed at the St. Martin’s Island)
b. Determining whether the carrying capacity at the beach has been exceeded or is it still in
the optimum range
c. Suggesting zones to be allowed for tourism activities in the island

4.0 Literature Review

The concept of tourism carrying capacity arises from a perception that tourism cannot grow
forever in a place without causing irreversible damage to the local system (Coccossis and Mexa,
2004). Carrying capacity analysis is a basic technique used in tourism to determine the upper
limits of development and visitor use and optimum exploitation of tourism resources. Within
the country, carrying capacities need to be established generally for the planning area and
calculated more precisely for each development site at the community planning level (Inskeep,
1991).

From the perspective of spatial distribution, tourism is a highly fragmented activity. It is located
in specific environments and destinations, where there is a variety of environmental, cultural,
social and physical attractions. The rapid but unplanned development and utilization of these
resources create a risk of losing their recovery capacities, destroying the basic functionalities of
ecosystem within tourism areas. Various tourism-related factors can be identified to have
impact on these resources, among which the number of tourists would be the most important
one. The concept of carrying capacity of a tourism site was formed from this perception (Tran
Nghi et al., 2007). This concept is important in the tourism planning which aims to sustainable
tourism development.

Recent textbooks and articles (e.g. Gartner, 1996; Inskeep, 1991; Saveriades, 2000; Wahab &
Pigram, 1997) reflect this interest and have suggested that destinations not be developed
beyond their saturation points or ‘innate capacities’ for tourism. If degradation occurs, then
management action is implemented to return the area to within its numeric carrying capacity.
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

Pereira da Silva (2002) suggests that development objectives are determinant in the calculation
of carrying capacity and can help manage the inevitable negative impacts from leisure activities.
Research on TCC undertaken by Stephen F McCool and David W Lime suggest that having
reviewed the range of TCC concepts “Our focus should, instead of a numerical approach, be on
the deployment of frameworks and strategies that determine which of many plausible futures
are desirable, what social, economic and environmental conditions are involved in tourism
development, the acceptability of the tradeoffs that would occur, and how people affected can
be given voice to articulate concerns and values involved.”

Indeed, as highlighted by Pearce et al. (1989 and 1990) the idea of strong sustainability is
strictly associated with environmental protection, which would mean to provide a non-
declining natural capital stock over time. Mexa and Coccossis (2004) indicated that despite
several criticisms, carrying capacity assessment remains a powerful concept that can be used
for planning and management of sustainable tourism. Carrying capacity has been described as
an appropriate tool for beach management, as it “enables the preservation of the high quality
and quantity of coastal resources whilst meeting not only the current needs, but also securing
long-term economic and ecological benefits for future generations” (UNEP/PAP, 1997:8).
Carrying Capacity was adopted as a management tool because the concept is easy to understand
and authorities and tourism operators wanted concrete numbers based on technical analyses to
manage, monitor, and make future projections.

In developed countries, TCCA is highly used and measured for every destination they offer for
the tourist. But in Bangladesh, no work is carried out to measure it and thus our destinations are
in threat of losing their natural recovery system and getting unattractive day by day. Moreover
next generation will find some ruined places useful for nothing that was the great attraction for
tourists once. For the Saint Martin’s Island the concept is particularly more important as it is
suffering from over loading both by the local residents and also by the exceedingly huge number
of tourists. The island has been declared Ecologically Critical Area by the Government.
Particularly, no restriction is there for tourist number to visit the island at time that the island
can tolerate as the actual carrying capacity of the island is still unknown to us.

The study attempts to calculate the carrying capacity of the Saint Martin’s Island in terms of its
physical, social, economic and ecological contexts.

5.0 Methodology

Physical, real, and effective carrying capacities will be assessed by using Cifuentes's
methodology (Cifuentes, 1992) which was suggested by the IUCN (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1996).
The logic of the method is based on the site specific factors which reduce the level and quality of
visitation and which are considered as the limitations of the area.

5.1 Physical carrying capacity (PCC)

Definition: PCC is the maximum number of tourists that can physically fit into or onto a specific
area, over particular time:

PCC = A × V/a × Rf…………………………………………… (1)

Where: A: available area for use (m²); V/a: required space per tourist (one tourist / required
m²); Rf: Rotation factor (number of visits per day).

A is determined by particular conditions of the considered area. For beach, the available area
may be the length and width of the beach that are allotted for tourism activities. The tourist
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

density or the area required per tourist V/a is the area needed for a tourist who can undertake
activities comfortably.

Rotation factor is the number of permissible visits over a specified time (usually calculated by
daily open hours) and expressed by:

Rf = Open period / average time of visit ……………………… (2)

5.2 Real Carrying Capacity (RCC)

Definition: the maximum permissible number of visits to a site, once the corrective (i.e.
reductive) factors derived from the particular characteristics of the site have been applied to the
PCC" and expressed by the following general formula where Cf is a corrective factor:

𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝒄𝒇𝟏 𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝐜𝐟𝟐 𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝐜𝐟𝐧

𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐂 = 𝑷𝑪𝑪 × × × …× … … … . . . (𝟑)
𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝟏𝟎𝟎

Where: Cf (corrective factors or limiting factors) are factors which have negative impact on
tourism activities and assessed by limiting threshold which used for identifying impact level of a
factor. Where corrective factors can be determined by:

𝑴𝟏
𝐂𝐟 = ……………………………………….……….. (4)
𝑴𝒕

Where: M1: limiting magnitude of variable; Mt: total magnitude of variable.

These factors are translated into quantitative or semi quantitative values which measure the
adaptability of environmental, socio-economic subsystem and tourists’ demand.

5.3 Effective carrying capacity (ECC)

Definition: the maximum number of visits that a site can sustain, considering the management
capacity (MC)" and formulated as:

ECC = RCC × MC…………………………………………………………….. (5)

6.0 Study Area

CWBMP has developed proposal for zoning of St. Martin’s Island. The term “zoning” means
dividing the Island (Ecologically Critical Area) into logical units for management and
conservation purposes, with the aim of defining and limiting uses and acceptable development
in each zone.

Of these three zones, only the ‘Managed Resource Zone’ should be allowed for tourism. Rest of
the other parts should be restricted for tourism and protected from local community. On this
basis, the tourism is to be concentrated only on the ‘MRZO 1’ and thus the carrying capacity of
this zone should be calculated. The main tourism activity in the Saint Martin’s Island is beach
tour, which is swimming and walking by the side of the beach. Thus the length of the coastline is
considered for the physical carrying capacity.
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

Figure 1: (a) three zones of St. Martin Island (b) The yellow line represents the coastal length
allotted for tourism activities

2 km

Source: CWBMP (a); Developed by Authors (b)

7.0 Carrying Capacity Assessment

7.1 Physical Carrying Capacity

To calculate Physical Carrying Capacity (PCC), the following physical parameters should be
considered:
- Total area of beach allocated for tourists: 40000m²from North & North-West
coastline(2000 m length with 20 m width)
- Average Length of beach coastline for bathing /swimming: 8m²per person, since in
the visitors seek natural beaches with few people. (MBRS Technical Document)
- Average time for using the beach by each tourist: 3 hours
- Beach using period: 6 hours (high tide in daylight) With regard to the time factor,
even though the beach should be visited from 10:00 to 16:00, visitors are only
allowed to remain there for 3 hours for the purpose of having two visitor periods.

Beach using period is 6 hours/day (high tide in daylight); each tourist takes about 3 hours. Thus
the number visits per day is 2(Rf= 6/3). Therefore, the maximum number of visits per day is:

PCC = (40,000m²) (1visitor/ 8 m²) (2 daily period) = 10,000 visitors/day

Thus, the maximum number of tourists that Saint Martin’s Island physically could serve is about
10,000 visitors /day.

7.2 Real Carrying Capacity

Corrective Factors:

+ Temporary closer (Cf1): The Island receives tourists only from September to March for a period
of 7 months as ships are operated only during this period in the year. Access to the Island is
quite limited during the rainy season due to very rough seas and this is an important
consideration for management planning. So, from April to August, those 5 months should be
considered as limiting factor, restricting tourists during that time period.

So, Cf1 = 5/12 = 42%.

Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

+ Accommodation limiting factor (Cf2): A 80.00%

questionnaire was used for accommodation 60.00% 24.00%
(hotel, guest house, and restaurant) quality 40.00%
assessment. Respondents chosen for the survey 20.00% 65.00%
0.00%
were students and tourists, According to the 11.00%
assessment of tourists and staff (Fig. 2):

Cf2=11%
Figure 2: Infrastructure quality assessments.
+ Safety factor (Cf3): Around 10% of the length of the given coastal line is assessed to have
potential risk for tourists’ safety as it is full of broken coral debris and foraminifera, and are
overlaid on nearly all sides by stony and sharp corals and boulders.

Therefore, Cf3= 10%

+ Cyclonic storms (Cf4): Cyclonic storms develop in the Bay of Bengal, generally in April-May
and October-November, and those that make landfall cause severe damage to human
settlements and vegetation. April and May should not be included here, as these two months
have been already fallen into “Temporary Closer” corrective factor 1. Hence, October-November
should be taken as a limiting factor.

M 4: 60 days (October and November), and Mt: 365 days (12 months)
Thus, Cf 4 = 60 / 365= 16.44%

+ Bad Weather/ Ship Cancellation (Cf5): Ships are operated between Teknaf and Saint
Martin’s Island from September to March for a period of 7 months. But, particularly in the
months of September and March, ships are cancelled due to bad weather and signal for on an
average 10 days of each month. As October-November has been taken as a limiting factor, we
should consider 5 months as tourist season. Thus-

M 5: 10+10= 20 days; and Mt: 30 5= 150 days; thus, Cf 5= 20/150 = 13%

+ Fishing Area (Cf6): Local people normally catch small fishes from near-shore by using nets
that they operate from the beach. Thus, at least 20% of the beach should be kept free from
tourists for the local fishermen.

Therefore, Cf6= 20%

From the above assessment, RCC of the Saint Martin’s Island can be computed as:
𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝒄𝒇𝟏 𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝐜𝐟𝟐 𝟏𝟎𝟎 − 𝐜𝐟𝐧
𝐑𝐂𝐂 = 𝑷𝑪𝑪 × × ×…×
𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝟏𝟎𝟎
𝑹𝑪𝑪 = 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟎 × 𝟎. 𝟓𝟖 × 𝟎. 𝟖𝟗 × 𝟎. 𝟗𝟎 × 𝟎. 𝟖𝟒 × 𝟎. 𝟖𝟕 × 𝟎. 𝟖
= 𝟐𝟕𝟏𝟔 (𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔/𝒅𝒂𝒚)

So, the Real Carrying Capacity (RCC) for the Saint Martin’s Island is 2716 visitors/day.

7.3 Effective carrying capacity (ECC)

Management capacity (MC)" was estimated from the perception of the tourists, because they are
the beneficiaries or sufferers and observe the management capacity directly and closely. The
capacity of jetty, Water and Energy supply, condition of waiting house, Management people’s
capability in Jetty, Waste management condition were the consideration for management
capacity (MC) and the figure was found from weighted average of these factors:
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
So, MC = (100 - Bad) %= (100 - 37) % = 63% 20.00%
20.00%
10.00%
= 𝟐𝟕𝟏𝟔 × 𝟎. 𝟔𝟑 = 𝟏𝟕𝟏𝟏 (𝑽𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔/𝑫𝒂𝒚) 0.00% 43.00%
ECC = RCC × MC
37.00%

Figure 3: Management Capacity assessments.

But real scenery is quite different. During the most peak season in December-January-February
around 3500 to 4000 tourists visit the island every day. During the peak season 5 ships operate
with the carrying capacity of 445 passengers each with an overload of 1/3 or 33% of their
carrying capacity.

Tourists Transported by Ship …………………………….445*5= 2225 tourists

(+) 2225*0.33= 734 tourists
2959 tourists

Many other tourists choose trawler, fishing boat and speed boat for the same purpose. So, the
number of tourists visiting the island each day during the tourist season can be estimated as
follows.

Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb March

1000 1000
2000 tourists 3500 to 4000 tourists
tourists tourists

This indicates that, the real situation is not favorable for our only coral colony, as the number of
tourist is a threat for the entire island. Proper steps should be taken by the authority concern to
protect the nation’s very unique asset; as if it is lost our next generation will never be able to
feel the beauty of such a heaven.

8.0 Conclusion

Concept of Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment arises from the notion that, as overcrowding
by the tourists is harmful and can destroy the natural, social and ecological system of a
destination, acceptable level of tourist density must be ensured. Thus, TCCA is estimated and
applied nearly in every remarkable destination in the world, particularly in the developed
countries. For the Saint Martin Island, the formation of TCC is particularly important. It is the
only coral island and thus one of most attractive tourist destination of Bangladesh and a great
number of tourists visit the island during the peak tourism season. The island is very small in
size, but local population is huge, let alone the tourists. Government of Bangladesh has declared
the island as an Ecologically Critical Area, to draw national and international attention to the
island in an attempt to protect its unique ecosystem.

In this circumstance, to protect both the island and also the tourism industry, a sustainable
balance between these two is needed. Carrying capacity assessment can serve this purpose, but
no significant work has been done in this regard. This work is an attempt to initiate the process
of assessing the TCC for the Saint Martin’s Island for sustainable tourism development.
Proceedings of the 3rd Regional Conference on Tourism Research, 29-31 Oct, 2013, Langkawi, Malaysia.

9.0 References

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Luc Hens, 1998, Tourism and Environment, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.

Pearce, D.W. et al., 1989, Blueprint for a Green Economy. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London.

Journals / Serials

Clark, J. R., 2005, Coastal zone management handbook. Florida: CRC Press, Inc.

H. Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996, Tourism, Ecotourism and Protected Areas: The state of nature-based tourism
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Saveriades, A., 2000, Establishing the social carrying capacity for tourist resorts of the east coast of the
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UNEP/PAP., 1997, Guidelines for carrying capacity assessment for tourism in Mediterranean coastal
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Wahab, S. and Pigram, J.J. (eds), 1997, Tourism, Development and Growth: The Challenge of Sustainability.
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Proceedings

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