旅游环境容量研究:从理论框架到管理工具

From Theoretical Framework to Practical Application: Progress in Tourism Environmental Capacity Research

旅游环境容量(TECC)最初只关注会对资源质量和游客自身的体验质量造成破坏的临界游客数量,但后来逐渐发展成为广泛应用于旅游资源管理之中的一系列管理工具,包括了目前在美国林业游憩资源管理中使用的可接受改变的极限方法(LAC)和在美国国家公园管理中使用的游客体验与资源保护VERP方法(VERP)。国内有学者提出用旅游环境承载力(TEBC)来替代旅游环境容量,但其核心内容是用一个抽象指标替代有实际数量单位的指标,这就与旅游环境容量理论面临同样的困难,即无法保证量化过程的可靠性,难以说明最后得到这些数值究竟要表达怎样的实际意义。将旅游环境容量作为管理工具的研究和应用工作需要得到更多的重视。

The fast development of tourism brings the world many new environmental challenges. In 1960s', foreign researchers began to notice the problems created by the scale of tourists and the intensity of tourist activities. Some of them believed that the negative impact of tourism on environment can be reduced through limiting the number of tourists. Therefore, the concept of 'Tourism Environmental Carrying Capacity (TECC)' was led into use in tourism studies. However, from late 1970s', the application of tourism carrying capacity methods in practice met some insoluble difficulties, and the concept itself faded out gradually from the main stream of tourism research. Contrary to its initial focus on the critical number of visitors that may destroy the resource quality and visitor experience, the concept of TECC shifted gradually from a theoretical framework into a series of widely used managerial tools in recreational resource management, including the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) and the Visitor Experience & Resource Protection (VERP). However, with the tourism development after 1978, some researchers in China mainland introduced the methods of TECC in environmental management of tourism, and what is more, after twenties years of application, the Code for Scenic Area Planning (1999) makes the measure of TECC as a required part of any eligible plan. A few domestic researchers attempted to reconstruct the conceptual system of TECC but not to deny its application. Tourism Environmental Bearing Capacity (TEBC) is such a concept. Because of its incapability in proving its rudimentary difference in conceptual system from TECC, TEBC can't ensure its reliability in quantitative studies. In other words, TEBC contributes little to the relative research fields. Its conceptual structure and theoretical meaning haven't been shown yet, and its practical value needs further investigation.