Tourist carrying capacity of Santana cave (PETAR-SP, Brazil): A new method based on a critical atmospheric parameter

• Santana cave is one of the most visited Brazilian ecotourism show caves.
• Tourist carrying capacity concerns started with the yearnings of tourist stakeholders.
• Impacts of tourism were used to verify the hypothetic visitation scenario.
• A threshold to tourist carrying capacity was formulated, instead of magic numbers.
• Carrying capacity of Santana cave can be flexible and based on seasonality.

This article presents a method used to identify thresholds to tourist carrying capacity of Santana cave (CCSC), in Brazil, and their results. The method comprised three steps: the delimitation of the tourist path; the projection of tourist scenarios; and the verification of the scenarios based on a critical atmospheric parameter: the air temperature. The impacts from visitation were up to 1.1 °C and stabilized in 264.1 min, in average. The results were related to the recovery of the critical factor and were compared to the projected scenarios, which were considered as acceptable. Thus, the suggested CCSC was based in groups of 24 visitors with an entrance interval of 30 min in working days and 18 visitors within 20 min in weekends and holidays. The conclusion reinforces the need to understand the tourist carrying capacity as a dynamic tool, not just to limit, but also to improve the tourist visitation.