Assessing Tourism Carrying Capacity Based on Visitors’ Experience Utility: A Case Study of Xian-Ren-Tai National Forest Park, China

Abstract

Considering the majority of previous assessment perspectives on tourism carrying capacity are limited by “the number of visitors”, this paper develops an innovative approach from the “visitors’ experience utility” perspective. Using the choice experiment method, tourism carrying capacity is assessed by exploring the marginal utility and sensitivity of visitors to changes in recreational attributes. Xian-Ren-Tai National Forest Park in China is employed as the case park to demonstrate the application of this assessment method. The conclusions are as follows: the carrying capacity threshold of the crowding level in this urban forest park ranges from 20–35 people/100 m2, the threshold of “vegetation coverage” ranges from 70% to 80%, and the “number of garbage” is 3–10 pieces/200 m. The acceptable traffic accessibility level for visitors is within 3 h. At present, Xian-Ren-Tai National Forest Park as a whole is in a state of “low carrying capacity”, there are potential risks of underutilization in this park. In addition, this paper provides the carrying capacity state of 27 potential recreational attribute sets.