A Model for Estimating the Tourism Carrying Capacity (TCC) of a Serial Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Via Appia. Regina Viarum

This study proposes a model for estimating the Tourism Carrying Capacity (TCC) of serial sites, a little-explored topic in the literature, developed for the UNESCO serial site Via Appia. Regina Viarum. The model is based on an extensive reinterpretation of Cifuentes’ Physical, Real, and Effective Carrying Capacity and on territorial indices used to modulate the carrying capacity of territories in relation to their infrastructural and ecological endowments. The estimate is conducted on 614 municipalities and 13 gravitational areas and includes the simulation of three evolutionary scenarios (2024–2034) of increased tourist pressure. The results for 2019 indicate an overall level of Effective Carrying Capacity at “low impact”, but with significant territorial variability, with some municipalities and areas tending towards increasing values of tourist load in future scenarios. Greater infrastructure provision does not automatically guarantee greater absorption capacity in the presence of ecological fragility, while municipalities with high ecological provision may show signs of stress due to a lack of services and infrastructure. The main contribution of the research is to extend the determination of TCC from the analysis of individual sites to the scale of the entire territory, providing a tool to support tourism planning and management.