Crowding Perception at the Archaeological Site of Tulum, Mexico: A Key Indicator for Sustainable Cultural Tourism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

After studying the text, the following comments emerge:

1 The 'Introduction' section is too broad and too little attention is paid to the presentation of research results and discussion. Conclusions are missing!

2. In “1. Introduction”:

(a) As far as the phenomenon of crowing in tourism is concerned, two terms widely discussed in the literature, i.e. carrying capacity and overtourism, must be referred to somewhere.

(b) in lines 68–71: It is a pity that no other examples from the literature are given, only the findings of the authors of this manuscript. Here it is necessary to cite the results of other authors - avoiding self-citation - to show that this way and not that way crowding is perceived by local and so and so international tourists. If the authors only stand by their example, how can the indicators and standards obtained be applied to other areas? After all, every paper should bring something new to the research space, as far as the theoretical basis and empirical results are concerned.

(c) in lines 72–76: The same remark as for the text in lines 57 and 58: do the authors not "produce" another paper by duplicating another term introduced into the literature by others, instead of using terms already defining the same phenomenon already described in other works in quite broad terms.

(d) in lines 78–88: As this paragraph discusses the obvious issue of heritage very generally/ broadly, so it is unnecessary. Here it is necessary to select only those aspects of heritage that allow one to move on to a more specific form of tourism related to the issue of this paper.

(e) in line 92: The brackets are missing here; it should probably be [10].

(f) in lines 120–125: The entire paragraph is rather redundant, as it deals with indicators whose definitions are self-evident and used in many scientific disciplines. Importantly, the Authors of the manuscript, contrary to what is announced at the beginning of the text, have not proposed any indicators derived from their research that could be used by other authors.

(f) „Normative theory”: This aspect should be one of the first to be discussed in this manuscript, as the literature review shows how long the authors' scope of research has been in the theoretical background.

3. „1.6. Study…”: This should be a separate - 2nd part of the manuscript and treated as a data source.

(b) Figure 2. Map of the archaeological site of Tulum - data source missing

(c) in lines 197–198: that's probably where you have to start, and the indicators are standard and have been used for a very long time in the literature, so why knock down an open door?

4. in line 210: „…based on normative theory.” - what does it exactly mean?

5. (a) in lines 250–251: Were the results obtained statistically significant or not? Please justify whether the sample is representative.

(b) in sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4: Methodologically erroneous; there were two groups of respondents and, in the remainder of the paper, the results obtained from them should be compared statistically and then described and interpreted accordingly. This should, moreover, be in accordance with the assumptions that the authors stated at the beginning of the manuscript.

(c) in lines 288–290: On what basis is this statement made, when no simple but methodologically correct statistical analysis has been carried out?

6. The discussion regarding the obtained results can be conducted when the obtained results are the result of statistically correct analysis and should refer to the results of the works cited in the section "Introduction" / Literature based discovery.

(a) The content of "4.1." should be based on the results obtained - from both groups of respondents.

Author Response

Please, see attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall a well written paper and interesting findings although not particularly surprising.

There is missing some literature on the issue of overcrowding. For example, for your introduction, within literature many have discussed these issues often called overtourism. Perhaps include or reference these.. such as:

Dodds, R., & Butler, R.W. (Eds.). (2019). Overtourism: Issues, realities and solutions. De Gruyter. ISBN: 978-3-11-62045-0  or other books on overtourism. There are some on Mexico for example such as

Glup (2021) Tourism Impacts on Local Populations

Webe, F,; Steller, J & Priskin, J (2017) Tourism Destinations Under Pressure

There is actually quite a lot of work done on Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) – not normative theory but does discuss similar issues so recommended to outline some of this work… especially as this was referenced in the discussion.

-       Line 37 seems very insignificant: “tourism revenues generate about 7% of the 37 total budget needed to maintain the site in a "decent" state of conservation [2].” This is not much at all so does not really justify tourism so perhaps find a better source?

Methods:

-       Perhaps this reviewer missed it but how many people completed the interview? Was it 400? Were any other questions asked or was it just being shown the photo? How were they approached? Was crowding or any other issues discussed with visitors? This would be useful and is needed to determine potential bias

-       This seems to be a quantitative approach but what types of analysis was done apart from frequencies? Were any t-tests or regression etc completed to ascertain reliability and validity?

Implications:

-       There could be more added to the implications. From a management perspective how would you balance this… rather than just limiting visitors there are many ways to make a destination seem less crowded. The implications and discussion of this paper are somewhat weak and should be added to.

Author Response

Please, see attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction and review of literature needs to be separated.

What is the research question and research hypotheses? It is not clearly presented in the manuscript.

Review of literature should present the theoretical underpinning of this work.

The method needs to be elaborated and it needs to be separated as data, measurement, and analysis. Please keep this sequence and organize paper. 

Moreover, the main points of results need to be emphasized more.

The theoretical contribution of this research looks very weak. Please strengthen the part. Also, the implication for management needs to be strengthened too. 

Author Response

Please, see attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for correcting the manuscript with reference to my comments. The text is now available for publication.

Author Response

Thak you very much

Reviewer 3 Report

Please elaborate the purpose of this research.

Also, the demographic information needs to be elaborated adding gender and monthly income if possible.

The authors need to explain more the analysis instrument in this research at the method part. 

In the conclusion section, it is necessary to present the suggesting for future research. 

In the picture, the authors need to explain more the criteria for the crowding in the method section.

The authors also need to present the theoretical implication of this research linking with normative theory. 

Moreover, the authors need to present the stream of crowding research in the review of literuature section more. 

Additionally, the authors need to present the research paper using figure not just the statement for the readbility. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx