Tourism is a complex industry involving numerous types of activities that can have adverse environmental impacts and, over time, gradually change the way tourists experience tourist destinations and their choice of particular tourist destinations. The overall aim of this study is to examine the impact of tourism destination exploitation upon the perceived attractiveness of a particular destination to different types of visitors using the Purism Scale coupled to the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC). The study uses the system dynamics Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) approach, to analyse feedback loop behaviour and causal loop impacts over time. The results show that the different visitors’ types, as defined by the Purist Scale, affect the attractiveness of the tourist destination in different ways over time. The results further show that different visitors’ types cannot exist at their own optimum level at the same time in a destination. The concept tourism carrying capacity should thus be defined through the maximum site attractiveness,-based upon the optimum size of infrastructure that ensures low visual effect, low crowding effect, and low environmental impact. This enables better understanding of the different evolution phases of the tourist site during its push for infrastructure development.

Ólafsdóttir, R., Schlyter, P. and Haraldsson, H.V., 2001: Simulating Icelandic vegetation cover during the Holocene. Implications for long-term land degradation. Geogr. Ann., 83 A (4): 203-215.ABSTRACT. We have simulated the spatial relationship between temperature change and long-term potential vegetation cover dynamics. The results show that the potential vegetation and birch forest range is highly sensitive to the temperature conditions. Around 3000 BP the simulated potential vegetation cover began to decrease and at the time of the Viking settlement, in AD 874 (1076 BP), vegetation and forest cover was already in decline. The climate driven decline continued to an unprecedented low potential for vegetation for the Holocene that lasted c. 600 years, i.e. between AD c. 1300 and 1900. These interpretations are further supported by geomorphological and pollen data.

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