The purpose of this research paper is to outline the theory and practice of tourism carrying capacity
assessment and its relevance as a management tool for coastal management. Based on the Tourism
Carrying Capacity Assessment for Protected Areas Framework and the Image Capture Technique associated
with the PAOT (people at one time) approach, this paper explores Praia de Faro as the study area
and attempts to assess the optimum number of people that should be allowed without jeopardizing the
surrounding ecological, social and cultural environments. Results showed that the physico-ecological
carrying capacity should be between 1385 and 2628 visitors/day with maximum impact acceptability
curves being 305 and 608 tourists (for local people and tourists respectively). Although there was
a significant difference between the physico-ecological and socio-cultural carrying capacity, this study
suggests that the physico-ecological carrying may be applied for ecosystem management, whilst the
socio-cultural carrying capacity may be addressed when management objectives are tourists and beach
users
