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

9.1.4 Impacts on Natural and Cultural Heritage
UNWTO, 9 July 2008
Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations
The natural resource base for tourism includes both human-shaped environments and the relatively
unmodified components of the environment, such as natural terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems
and landscapes, surface and ground water, as well as the atmosphere. Cultural heritage assets are also a
foundation of tourism; visitation to places for their historic, archaeological, architectural or indigenous
value underpins the industry in many destinations.
The natural environment is often very important in determining the demand for tourism, especially for
nature-based tourism. Tourists are attracted to national parks because they represent an aesthetically
pleasing and healthy environment, and they contain varied and interesting biodiversity. The impact of
climate change on biodiversity and natural landscapes may have a negative influence on their amenity
value and hence on visitor numbers. 369 However, tourists have been shown to adapt in the long run
to major changes in landscape (e.g., the Italian and French Rivieras through the twentieth century). In
some cases there are likely to be both costs and benefits. In the Arctic, a longer summer season is likely
to benefit cruise tourism and activities such as whale-watching whilst shorter winters could reduce the
range of Arctic fauna and flora which attracts some visitors. 370
The following are examples of some of the impacts on biodiversity that may occur as a result of climate
change, which in turn will impact on tourism. 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376
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The survival of rare and isolated populations in fragmented habitats may directly or indirectly be
affected by climate change; the loss of keystone or iconic species has important implications for
ecotourism. For example, the unique polar bear tourism industry (Figure 9.8) that has developed in
the northern town of Churchill, Canada is threatened by declining sea ice conditions on Hudson
Bay. Projections are that over the next 30 years, sea ice conditions may deteriorate to the point that
the polar bear population may collapse in this region.
Figure 9.8 Polar bear watching
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Photo credit: Dawson, J.
Endemic species are highly sensitive to change and therefore more vulnerable; e.g., over the past
twenty years one-hundred and ten endemic frog species (around 67%) of the population in the
popular tourist destination of the Costa Rican cloud forests and rainforests have become extinct.
377 Such extinctions can be due to non-climatic changes to the environment such as urban or
agricultural expansion, but similar changes will result from climate-related changes as well. 378
Animal populations may be affected by environmental stress or indirectly through changes in
vegetation. In some circumstances, migration may occur but however, where populations are
unable to migrate due, for example restrictions of mountainous terrain or lack of migration
corridors, local extinction is likely to occur. 379
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