ABSTRACT
The objective of this chapter is to discuss the relevance of the concept of the tourism carrying capacity for both heritage cities and heritage sites. The starting point of the chapter is the notion that the concept of the carrying capacity is strictly related to the sustainability of tourism development. In fact, tourism is not always beneficial for destinations. There may either be too few (hence, the destination loses the development opportunities it possesses) or too many people (in this case tourism damages the environment in the broader sense) visiting a destination. In other words, the tourism carrying capacity indicates where the upper limit to tourism development fmds itself.
