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62 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
on three major destination types with established vulnerabilities: mountains, islands and coastal zones,
and natural-cultural heritage areas. The following section will focus specifically on climate change
adaptation, outlining the wide portfolio of adaptations available (both potential strategies and those
already being utilized by the tourism industry to cope with natural seasonality and climate variability)
and provide illustrative examples of adaptation in mountain, islands and coastal areas, and naturalcultural
heritage areas.
9.1 Impacts on Tourism Supply
9.1.1 Overview
There are four broad categories of climate change impacts that could affect tourism destinations, their
competitiveness and sustainability, three of which will be covered in this Chapter.
• Direct climatic impacts – including geographic and seasonal redistribution of climate resources
for tourism, and changes in operating costs (heating-cooling degree days, insurance premiums).
• Indirect environmental change impacts – including climate induced-environmental changes
such as water shortages, biodiversity loss, decline of landscape aesthetic, increase in vector-borne
disease, damage to infrastructure.
• Impacts of mitigation policies on tourist mobility – including changes in tourist flow due to
increased prices; alterations to aviation routes; changes in the proportions of short-haul and longhaul
flights. This aspect will be discussed in detail in Chapters 10 and 12.
• Indirect societal change impacts – including the consequences of the broader impacts of climate
change on societies, such as changes in economic growth, development patterns, social-political
stability and personal safety in some regions. These will have ‘knock-on’ effects on operations,
employment and security issues in tourism and related sectors.
Direct impacts from a changed climate
Direct impacts include changes in climate-related push-pull factors *, changes in operating costs as a
result of climate change and change to patterns of extreme weather events. Climate itself is a principal
resource for tourism, as it co-determines the suitability of locations for a wide range of tourist activities
and is a principal driver of the seasonality of demand. In general, adequate climatic conditions are key
for all types of tourism activities, ranging from conventional beach tourism to special interest segments,
such as eco-, adventure-, and sport tourism. Furthermore, at some destinations, climate represents the
primary attraction on which tourism is predicated. One of the most direct impacts of projected climate
change on tourism will be the redistribution of climatic assets among tourism regions. Changes in
the length and quality of climate-dependent tourism seasons (i.e., sun-and-sea or ski holidays) could
have considerable implications for competitive relationships between destinations and therefore the
profitability of tourism enterprises.
An analysis of 143 North American cities identified the potential for a substantive redistribution of
climate resources for tourism in the later decades of the 21st century, particularly under high emission
scenarios. 200 The number of cities in the USA with ‘excellent’ or ‘ideal’ ratings in the winter months is
likely to increase, so that southern Florida and Arizona could face increasing competition for winter sun
holiday travellers and the seasonal ‘snowbird’ market (originating from Canada and the northern states
* Push-pull factors: unfavourable climate condition in country/place of origin of tourists and favourable conditions at
destinations.
UNWTO, 9 July 2008