The effects of global climate change on tourism

Dávid, Lóránt – Baros, Zoltán

Keywords: human-bioclimatology, climate change, human comfort, extreme weather events

The tourist industry faces new challenges due to the expected effects of global climate change. The prognosis of the effects vary regionally, however, it appears certain that the seafront and mountain regions are the most threatened as a result of the changing distribution and amount of rainfall, altered comfort levels and the more regular occurrence of extreme weather events. The Mediterranean tourist trade, for example, could be drastically reduced due to the increasingly regular heat waves, while the cooler, more pleasant and longer lasting summer climate of higher mountain ranges may offer a possible alternative. As the snow-line retreats, those wishing to ski will target higher slopes, significantly increasing the burden on these areas, despite the fact that their support and tolerance level is much lower.

The increasing regularity of extreme weather phenomena not only endangers tourists’ physical safety, but also the fundamental infrastructure of their destinations. This, together with the images portrayed by the media of an area, may scare away tourists.

One of the main factors determining a tourist destination’s future competitiveness is how fast and to what extent it is able to adapt to continuous changes. Climatology can contribute to this with measurements and predictions based on the already developed human-bioclimatology indexes and the indicators developed specifically for use by the tourist industry (e.g. CIT - Climate Index for Tourism), together with ever more accurate and detailed information provision.

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