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Abstract |
There are considerable national parks and other protected areas around the world that are attracting a huge number of visitors annually. In many cases the tourist visitation can be highly concentrated both spatially and temporally leading to the generation of impacts in different directions in social, economic, environmental, technical areas not only within the protected area but also in its buffer zone. Because of this situation and the absence of specific indicators to manage tourism overuse, this study aims to develop a proposal of indicators and sustainability index of tourist frequentation to determine the impact of ecotourism associated with protected areas and buffer zones of high tourist demand. The selection of indicators was carried out after a systematic process consisting of: (i) identification of the problem to be evaluated, (ii) definition of indicators and their variables, (iii) selection of indicators, (iv) definition of criteria for indicator selection, (v) selection of indicators, (vi) design of indicators, (v) validation of indicators using the Delphi method. As a result, there are a set of 32 indicators that take into account areas such as natural resources, community, visitors, protected area management, and tourist operation. The proposal includes an Approximate Tourism Visitation Sustainability Index (AToViSI) which varies between 0 and 1 according to the degree of sustainability determined. The proposal collaborates in the management (both internally and externally) of protected areas to generate mechanisms or strategies towards the sustainability of the tourist destination. The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to improve visitor management and not make past mistakes or at least mitigate and guide adaptive management to more sustainable conditions in areas of high tourist attraction. |
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