As a climate sensitive sector, tourism might be highly affected by global climate change due to changes of temperatures, precipation, wind speed, storm frequency, etc.

The impacts on tourism are expected to lead to the reduction of visitors in some destinations (e.g. Spain, Northern Africa). However, other regions like Germany and UK are expected to profit from increasing tourism revenues.

Tourism Vision suggests the following scheme for the analysis of climate change impacts on tourism:

The basis for impact assessments are climate models, in particular the IPCC scenarios and regional downscalled model variations.

The assesssment of the natural and cultural heritage vulnerability, the adaptation capacities of lead species (e.g. polar bears) and attracttiveness of landscapes provides insights of possible impacts on tourism resources. This might be enriched with a detailed assessment of destination-specific activities (e.g. coral bleaching and scuba diving).

Climate tourism index are used to examine the implications of climate change for tourism, and in particular for tourists' comfort. They are based on human comfort indexes that combine different climate factors, such as temperature, humidy, hours of sunshine and wind speed.

Matzarakis developed a Climate-Tourism-Information-Scheme which illustrates the different components of a climate index and their impacts on the tourists' comfort. This scheme can also be used for long-term climate projections.

Tourists' comfort is the main factor for tourism demand models calculating the impact of climate change on tourism. As tourist psychology and experience are mostly neglected or over simplified, these models have to interpreted carefully.

However, Bigano, Hamilton & Tol (2006) conclude after the analysis of the holiday destination choice of tourists from 45 countries (based on UNWTO data) that "Climate change would drive tourists towards the poles and, for those not interested in sea and sand, up the mountains.", and in an other study, they state that "Domestic tourism may double in colder countries and fall by 20% in warmer countries […]. By 2100, for individual countries, international arrivals may fall by up to 60% of the base value or increase by up to 220% of the base value […]".

Furthermore, climate change affects tourism businesses indirectly and directly, e.g. through safety issues, insurance primes and opening times.

A holistic climate change impact analysis must also consider long-term and framing aspects which are affected by changing climate conditions and influence tourism flows, such as social stabilty, economic development and mitigation policies (e.g. inclusion of aviation in the EU Emission Trading Scheme).

For instance, the last UN Human Development Report illustrates the devasting impacts climate change might have on developing countries.

The Deutsche Bank (2007) presents a good world wide overview of climate change impacts on tourism. Have a look at the portfolio-chart below which shows climate change impacts in relation to tourism's share of the gross domestic product.

Further information

The UNWTO-UNEP report 2008 on Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges and the seminar report of UNEP, the Oxford University and UNWTO on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Tourism Sector: Frameworks, Tools and Practices provide a pool of mitigation measures for a wide-range of tourism stakeholders.

The Deutsche Bank conducted a study analysing how climate change will affect holiday regions by 2030.

The IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007) provides the state of the art knowledge on climate change. The report of Working Group II focuses on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

IPCC (2000) also published a Special Report on Emission Scenarios.

The UNFCCC Compendium 2008 provides assessment tools for climate change vulnerabilities and opprtunitites for adaptation.

The websiteClimate Change and the Visitor Economy in England's Northwest, integrating different case studies, illustrates the impacts of climate change in the UK.

The study 2030: Swiss Tourism and Climate Change (German) gives an overview climate change impacts on Swiss Tourism, as well as possible responses.

Scott, D., researcher at the University of Waterloo conducted a large number of articles on climate change impacts, focussing on wintersport and golf.

Members of the International Society of Biometeorology Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation concentrate their work on climate indexes in order to measure tourist well-being in relation to different weather parameters. Related studies also consider future climate changes. A comprehensive report on Developments in Tourism Climatology has been published in 2007.

The Hamburg Tourism Model is a simulation model of tourism flows to and from 207 countries. It is used to analyse scenarios of population and economic growth as well as climate change and climate policy.

The Stern Report – Stern Review on the Econmics of Climate Change (2006) is the most comprehensive economic analysis on this issue, concluding that "[...] the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever."

The Human Development Report 2008 is dedicated to climate Change and poverty, concluding that "The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem."

UNESCO (2007) published a study on the impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Sites which includes well illustrated case-studies.

The GEO-4 – Fourth Global Environmental Outlook reports on the state of the global environment, assesses the current state of global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity, and describes what has changed in those two decades.

The Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen (German) (2007) conducted a survey (n=1000) among German on how climate change impacts and will impact on tourist behaviour.

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