Social limits to tourism

It is commonly assumed that the quality of the tourist experience decreases with increasing numbers. This asumption is correct when the tourist experience is seen in romantic terms, but there are other kinds of experience that are not vulnerable to increasing numbers. Examples are given from different tourist sites: mountains, green belt, stately homes and parkland, beaches, seaside towns and villages, primitive cultures, historic towns and capital cities. Tourist sites should not be publicized in self-destructive terms. Nor is the fashionable policy of dispersing tourists into more and more nodes a long-term answer to visitor pressure; alternatives exist and should be encouraged.