Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

88 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
Box 12 Water impact and adaptation in Tobago
UNWTO, 9 July 2008
446, 447
Tourism destination and situation: Tobago, the Caribbean.
Climate change impact: Water shortages for accommodation providers and tour operators due to
increasing incidence of droughts.
Adaptation strategy/strategies: Small-scale structural adaptations: including retrofitting buildings
with rainwater collectors, increasing storage tank capacity, converting toilets to saltwater supply,
and adding diesel powered desalination capacity. Plus non-structural adaptations: including water
conservation education for employees and guests, revised landscaping practices and limited use
of pools.
Organization implementing the adaptation strategy: Conducted by individual accommodation
providers and tour operators.
9.2.4 Adaptation in Mountain Destinations
There are a wide range of climate change adaptation options that will allow mountain destinations to
cope with reduced natural snowfall, increased natural hazards (e.g., avalanches, rock slides), and position
themselves to take advantage of longer warm weather tourism seasons. For some adaptation options,
there will also be important barriers that will need to be overcome for successful implementation.
Climate change adaptations available to the ski industry consist of the actions of several stakeholders
as outlined in Figure 9.12. The availability of these adaptation options will be context-specific and
vary according to geographic characteristics (e.g., microclimate, available high elevation terrain for
expansion, and distance to large urban markets), government jurisdiction (e.g., water access rights,
snow-making restrictions) and business model (e.g., centralized versus decentralized ownership of ski
destination infrastructure, independent ski operator versus ski conglomerate).