that is a blanket statement that has to be examined more closely. if the increase in tourist footfall is not matched by a corresponding increase in carrying capacity, you get Puerto Plata. if you examine most popular tourist destinations, and look at their histories, you will find that they were first discovered by adventurous people, then they became developed, and stabilized. the mass tourism came later down the line. a look at the tourism life cycle expounded by Butler shows that the decline of tourist destinations is usually occasioned by overstressing the carrying capacity, at which time the concept of diminishing returns begins to set in. overspecialization in tourism is a dangerous economic development model, because it is very dependent upon world economic conditions, and since profit margins are razor thin, a minor falloff in footfall, in single digits, can ravage the returns on investment. it is not a very good idea to build a dependency upon a seasonal business such as tourism, because it also generates a high degree of cyclical unemployment, which further stresses the economy.
the potential for tourism expansion is there, in spades. any temptation to try to get as many heads in the beds has to be tempered with the understanding of the negative externalities.