engleski

Exploring spatial impact of tourism development on protected areas from the TALC model perspective

Originally introduced by Butler in 1980, after more than three decades of academic scrutiny and criticism, tourism area life cycle model (TALC) has remained one of the most important areas of the contemporary tourism research. The TALC model is an adaptation of the previously developed product life cycle models applied to the field of tourism, mostly in an effort to describe a common pattern of the development of tourism destinations and resorts and to provide more effective tools for tourism destination management. Even though TALC model has been explored from different perspectives, literature review suggests that there are relatively few studies investigating the TALC model in the context of the protected natural areas, which represent a major research gap and focal point of this research. In order to address this research gap, we will try to investigate spatial patterns and environmental impacts of tourism development in the protected natural areas associated with different phases of the TALC model. National Park “Plitivice Lakes” in Croatia was selected as a convenient case study location due to the availability of data and lower intensity or even absence of other forms of socio-economic factors that might exert spatial and/or environmental influences. The following methodology was applied. First, we tried to detect inflection points on a 45 year time series of tourism development (the number of visitors), wherein each inflection point has been associated with the beginning of different stage of the TALC model. After detecting inflection points and associated stages of TALC model, we closely inspected spatial and environmental effects associated with different stages of TALC model and provided longitudinal review of tourism induced spatial and environmental impacts throughout the different TALC phases. The working hypothesis is that different stages of TALC model in protected natural areas could be associated with spatial and environmental effects which are different in their nature and intensity. That being the case, responsible tourism development in the protected natural areas requires different managerial approaches in every stage of the TALC model in order to prevent possible tourism induced negative impacts on physical space and natural environment.

TALC; spatial impacts; enironmental impacts; tourism destination; Plitvice Lakes; Croatia

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