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UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
ISBN: 978-92-844-1234-1 (UNWTO)
ISBN: 978-92-807-2886-6 (UNEP)

Published by the World Tourism Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme
Printed by the World Tourism Organization, Madrid, Spain
First printing 2008
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UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Table of Contents

Foreword

............................................................................................................................ vii

Acknowledgement

............................................................................................................ ix

Introduction

....................................................................................................................... xi

Part I: The International Debate .............................................................................................

1 Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism

(Davos, 1–3 October 2007).................................................................................................. 3

1.1 Programme of the Second International Conference on Climate

Change and Tourism ...................................................................................................

1.2 Conclusions from the Panel Sessions ..........................................................................

1.2.1 Adaptation Responses in Speciﬁc Types of Destinations ................................

1.2.2 Mitigation Responses in Tourism Sub-Sectors ................................................. 9

2 Davos Declaration: Climate Change and Tourism –

Responding to Global Challenges ...................................................................................

3 Conclusions of the Ministers’ Summit on Tourism and Climate Change

(London, United Kingdom, 13 November 2007) .................................................................

4 Resolution on Tourism and Climate Change

adopted by UNWTO General Assembly, Seventeenth Session

(Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 23–29 November 2007) ..................................................

5 Statement by Francesco Frangialli, Secretary-General of UNWTO,

on the Occasion of the UN Conference on Climate Change

(Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, 12 December 2007)................................................................. 21

Part II: Technical Report ........................................................................................................ 23

6 Executive Summary .......................................................................................................... 25

6.1 The New Realities of Tourism in an Era of Global Climate Change ...............................

6.2 Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations .........................................................

6.3 Implications of Climate Change for Tourism Demand Patterns .....................................

6.4 Emissions from Global Climate Tourism: Status and Trends .........................................

6.5 Mitigation Policies and Measures .................................................................................

6.6 The Way Forward to Adaptation and Mitigation in Tourism ...........................................

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

7 Introduction to the Technical Report ...............................................................................

7.1 The New Realities of Tourism in an Era of Global Climate Change ...............................

7.2 Moving Forward on Understanding the New Realities ..................................................

7.3 Purpose and Scope ....................................................................................................

7.4 Who this Report is for ..................................................................................................

8 Advances in Climate Change Science and Implications for the Tourism Sector ........

8.1 Distinguishing Weather, Climate, and Climate Change .................................................

8.1.1

Deﬁnitions

....................................................................................................... 45

8.1.2 Relationships between Climate, Weather and Tourism ..................................... 46

8.1.3 The Importance of Weather Forecasts and Climate Prediction for

the Tourism Sector ..........................................................................................

8.2 Advances in the Understanding of Global Climate Change ..........................................

8.2.1 Regional and Local Climate Change: Why Downscaling is Critical

for

Tourism

...................................................................................................... 50

8.3 Latest Results on Past and Future Climate Change .....................................................

8.3.1 The Changing Climate .....................................................................................

8.3.2 Human Inﬂuence on Climate Change ..............................................................

8.3.3 Global Climate Change in the 21st Century .....................................................

8.3.4 Regional Climate Change in the 21st Century .................................................

8.4

Conclusion

................................................................................................................. 58

9 Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations ..........................................................

9.1 Impacts on Tourism Supply .........................................................................................

9.1.1

Overview

......................................................................................................... 61

9.1.2 Mountain and Winter Sports Destinations........................................................

9.1.3 Impacts on Islands and Coastal Zones ............................................................

9.1.4 Impacts on Natural and Cultural Heritage ........................................................

9.2 Adaptation to Climate Change.....................................................................................

9.2.1

Overview

......................................................................................................... 81

9.2.2 Adaptation to Extreme Events and Natural Disasters .......................................

9.2.3 Adaptation to Changes in Environmental Resources: Conservation of

Natural Ecosystems to Enhance their Resilience and the Rational and

Efﬁcient Use of Scarce Resources ..................................................................

9.2.4 Adaptation in Mountain Destinations ...............................................................

9.2.5 Adaptation in Small Island Destinations ...........................................................

9.2.6 Adaptation in Natural and Cultural Heritage Destinations .................................

9.3

Adaptation

Policy

........................................................................................................ 96

9.4

Conclusion

.................................................................................................................. 99

10 Implications of Climate Change for Tourism Demand ................................................... 103

10.1 Consumer Response to a Changing Climate ............................................................... 103

10.1.1 Changes in Global Demand Patterns .............................................................. 104

10.1.2 Changes in Regional-local Demand Patterns ................................................... 108

10.2 Demand Implications of Climate-induced Environmental Change................................. 112

10.3 Demand Implications of Mitigation Policies and Tourism Mobility ................................. 116

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Table of Contents

10.4 Demand Implications of Climate-induced Societal Change .......................................... 118

10.5

Conclusion

.................................................................................................................. 119

11 Emissions from Tourism: Status and Trends .................................................................. 121

11.1

Current

Emissions and Radiative Forcing from Tourism ........................................ 122

11.1.1 Introduction: Global Tourism Demand ............................................................. 122

11.1.2

Transport

Emissions

........................................................................................

123

11.1.3

Accommodation

.............................................................................................

130

11.1.4 Other Tourism Activities .................................................................................. 131

11.1.5

Total

Emissions and RF from Global Tourism in 2005 ............................... 132

11.1.6

Emissions from Intra-regional and Interregional Travel ............................. 134

11.2 Emissions Related to Individual Holiday ....................................................................... 139

11.3 Scenario on the Development of Emissions from Tourism ............................................ 140

11.4

Conclusion

.................................................................................................................. 144

12 Mitigation Policies and Measures .................................................................................... 145

12.1

Transport

..................................................................................................................... 146

12.1.1

Air

Transport

...................................................................................................

146

12.1.2

Surface

Transport

............................................................................................ 149

12.1.3

Modal

Shift

...................................................................................................... 152

12.1.4 Destination Mobility Management .................................................................... 153

12.1.5

Transport

Policies

............................................................................................

155

12.2

Tourism

Establishments

...............................................................................................

158

12.2.1 Technological Mitigation Options ..................................................................... 158

12.2.2 Integrated Emission Management ................................................................... 163

12.2.3 Policies for Tourism Establishments and Destinations ...................................... 166

12.3 The Role of Tour Operators and other Organizations ................................................... 167

12.4

Tourist

Behaviour

......................................................................................................... 167

12.4.1 Sustainable Demand and Consumer Choices ................................................. 168

12.4.2

Carbon

Offsetting

............................................................................................

168

12.4.3 Long-haul Travel Reductions and Poverty Alleviation ....................................... 169

12.5 Tourism Mitigation Scenarios ........................................................................................ 170

12.6

Conclusion

................................................................................................................... 172

13 The Way Forward to Adaptation and Mitigation in Tourism .......................................... 175

13.1 Key Impacts of Climate Change on Tourism ................................................................ 175

13.2 Adaptation to Climate Change..................................................................................... 176

13.3 The Contribution of Tourism to Climate Change ........................................................... 177

13.4

Mitigation

Potential

...................................................................................................... 177

13.5 Knowledge Gaps and Research Needs ....................................................................... 178

13.6

Time

Horizons

............................................................................................................. 179

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Annex 1 Methodological Note on UNWTO’s Estimates on Worldwide Tourism Volumes 181

A1.1 Methodological Note on UNWTO’s Estimates on Worldwide Tourism Volumes ............ 181

A1.1.1

Deﬁnitions

.......................................................................................................

181

A1.1.2 Basic Tourism Facts ........................................................................................ 182

A1.1.3 UNWTO’s Estimates on World Tourism Volumes ............................................. 183

A1.1.4 Sources of Data .............................................................................................. 184

A1.2 Tables of UNWTO Aproximates of Consistent Worldwide Tourism Volumes ................. 186

Annex 2 Emission Calculations ............................................................................................. 191

A2.1 General Method for Emission Inventories ..................................................................... 191

A2.2 Detailed Calculations ................................................................................................... 191

A2.2.1 Transport Modal Split, Volumes and Emissions................................................ 191

A2.2.2 Tourism’s Share in Aviation .............................................................................. 194

A2.2.3

Accommodation

............................................................................................

196

List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 197

List of Boxes ..................................................................................................................... 199

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... 201

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... 203

List of References ............................................................................................................. 205

Bibliography

....................................................................................................................... 237

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Foreword

The Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism (Davos, Switzerland, October
2007) was a milestone event that brought together a wide variety of stakeholders and delivered a clear
commitment for action to respond to the climate change challenge. It underscored the need for the
tourism sector to rapidly respond to climate change if it is to develop in a sustainable manner, which
will require actions to: mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the tourism sector, derived especially
from transport and accommodation activities; adapt tourism businesses and destinations to changing
climate conditions; apply existing and new technologies to improve energy efﬁciency; and secure
ﬁnancial resources to assist regions and countries in need.

The Davos Declaration highlighting these actions is a huge step forward and presents concrete
recommendations to the key interest groups involved in tourism. This is indeed necessary, considering
that tourism is today one of the world’s largest economic sectors, and represents an activity that forms
an integral part of modern societies in both developed and developing countries. It is, above all, a
vital element in poverty reduction efforts and for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development
Goals.

In the context of the Davos meeting, the report “Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global
Challenges”, which was commissioned to a group of prominent researchers, encompasses the status of
knowledge on the complex relationship between climate change and tourism. The publication notes
the vulnerability of the sector to climate change and the impacts of tourism on climate itself. The report
provides an excellent basis to address the global phenomenon of climate change, as well as to develop
practical tools that can be used by tourism policy-makers and managers to foster the sustainable growth
of the industry.

The impacts and opportunities pertinent to the tourism sector are also underlined in

the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Global Environment
Outlook.

The Davos Conference and the London Ministerial meeting held in November 2007, together with
the release of this report, are an integral part of the common UN system effort to develop a climate
change response framework, and constituted the tourism input at the UN Climate Summit held in
Bali in December 2007. This process is possible thanks to the close collaboration between the World
Tourism Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological
Organization, and we are conﬁdent that it will contribute to the establishment of an effective and
comprehensive climate change framework for the post-2012 period. The three agencies have joined
forces with the aim of ensuring an effective response to the challenges ahead, in the true spirit of the
‘Delivering as one’ message of the UN family.

Francesco Frangialli

Achim Steiner

Michel Jarraud

Secretary-General

UN Under Secretary-General

Secretary-General

World Tourism Organization

Executive Director

World Meteorological Organization

United Nations Environment

Programme

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Acknowledgements

This publication has been coordinated by Luigi Cabrini and Gabor Vereczi at the Sustainable
Development of Tourism Department of UNWTO, in cooperation with Stefanos Fotiou at UNEP and
Leslie Malone at WMO.

UNWTO, UNEP and WMO are grateful to the following for their contribution:

Authorship team of the technical study:

Dr. Daniel Scott (Lead Author, University of Waterloo, Canada, Lead of the WMO Expert Team on
Climate and Tourism); Dr. Bas Amelung (University of Maastricht, Netherlands); Dr. Susanne Becken
(Lincoln University, New Zealand, Oceania/Southeast Asia Representative of WMO Expert Team on
Climate and Tourism); Dr. Jean-Paul Ceron (Limoges University, France); Ghislain Dubois (TEC Conseil,
France); Dr. Stefan Gössling (Lund University, Sweden and Western Norway Research Institute, Norway);
Paul Peeters (Breda University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands); Dr. Murray C. Simpson (University of
Oxford, England).

Advisors and reviewers:

UNWTO:

Geoffrey Lipman, Eugenio Yunis, Chris Lyle, John Kester, Sandra Carvao, Julian
Fischer

UNEP:

Charles Arden-Clarke, Martina Otto, Mark Radka, Helena Rey de Assis

WMO:

Rupa Kumar Kolli

External reviewers: Martin Brackenbury (International Federation of Tour Operators), Christian Hochfeld

(Öko-Institut), Suzana Kahn Ribeiro (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)

This publication has been ﬁnanced by UNWTO, UNEP (with a contribution of the French Ministry
of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Physical Planning, under the Marrakech Task Force on
Sustainable Tourism Development) and WMO.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Introduction

This publication reﬂects the importance attached by the tourism sector to the impacts of climate change
and contains valuable scientiﬁc and technical information. It also constitutes an important input in
the ongoing commitment of the United Nations to respond to the challenge of climate change. The
publication contains two distinct parts.

The ﬁrst, entitled “The International Debate” collects the main results of a series of events focused on
climate change and tourism, which took place in the second half of 2007. The participants at the Davos
International Conference (1-3 October 2007) adopted a Declaration, which represents the position of
a wide spectrum of tourism stakeholders from the public and the private sector. The Davos Declaration
acknowledges the urgency to further assess the impacts deriving from the relation between tourism and
climate change and sets out directions for common actions from the tourism sector. At the Ministerial
Summit held in London on 13 November 2007 and at the UNWTO General Assembly (Cartagena de
Indias, Colombia, 23-29 November 2007) the Davos Declaration was extensively reviewed, and a
number of important considerations, which complement and further elaborate on its content, were
discussed and adopted.

The London Conclusions and the Resolution adopted by UNWTO Member States in Colombia reﬂect
the consensus reached in these forums and reiterate some key messages: climate change should be
addressed without losing sight of other priorities, especially poverty alleviation and tourism contribution
to the Millennium Development Goals; there should be no discrimination against developing countries
by creating obstacles to their economic development; ﬁnancial resources should be secured for those
especially vulnerable to climate change; a disproportionate burden should not be imposed on the
tourism sector; and initiatives to address climate change in the tourism sector should be integrated
within the existing UN framework.

The second part is a technical report, which analyzes in detail the relations between tourism and
climate change, the impact of climate change at destinations, the adaptation options and strategies and
the implications for tourism demand patterns. The report contains as well the ﬁrst detailed assessment
ever made of greenhouse gas emissions from tourism related activities, together with an analysis of
mitigation policies and measures.

This study was committed by UNWTO, in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), to a team of prominent experts, with reviews
by relevant staff of the three international organizations as well as by other external reviewers. UNWTO
elaborated a set of tourism statistical data to be used for the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions
while the expert’s team took responsibility for the scientiﬁc aspects of the technical study relating to
climate change, which are based on the broader research carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). The Annexes contain a detailed description on methodology and terminology
used for these calculations. A summary of the preliminary ﬁndings of this report was presented at the
Davos Conference, and it is included as the executive summary of this report.

We wish to thank all those who have contributed to this important work.

Luigi

Cabrini

Director, Sustainable Development of Tourism

World

Tourism

Organization

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 1

Second International Conference on Climate

Change and Tourism

(Davos, 1–3 October 2007)

1.1 Programme of the Second International Conference on Climate

Change and Tourism

Opening Session

Ambassador Dr. Eric Scheidegger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat of State for Economic
Affairs SECO, Switzerland

Mr. Francesco Frangialli, Secretary-General, UNWTO

Mr. Shafqat Kakakhel, Deputy Executive Director, UNEP

Mr. R. D. J. Lengoasa, Assistant Secretary-General, WMO

Mr. André Schneider, MD and COO, World Economic Forum

Conference Overview and Key Trends

Prof. Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant Secretary-General, UNWTO

Dr. Youssef Nassef, Manager, Adaptation, UNFCCC

Dr. Daniel Scott, UNWTO Expert, Canada Research Chair in Global Change and Tourism,
Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo

Roundtable Discussion: How the tourism sector responds

Moderated by Ms. Fionnuala Sweeney, CNN Anchor

Dr. Philippe Rochat, Executive Director, Air Transport Action Group

Dr. Sapta Nirwandar, Secretary-General, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Indonesia

Mr. Renton de Alwis, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourist Board

Mr. Lelei Lelaulu, President, Counterpart International

Ms. Cathleen Johnson, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Global Tourism Director,
Edelman Inc.

Mr. Christopher Brown, Chair, UNWTO Business Council, MD/CEO, TTF Australia

Mr. Ghassan Aïdi, President, IH&RA

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Plenary Panel Sessions on Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

Panel 1: Coastal Destinations and Small Islands

Moderated by Mr. Gabor Vereczi, Chief of Environment and Quality Section, Sustainable
Development of Tourism Department, UNWTO

Mr. Christopher Rodrigues, Chairman, VisitBritain

Dr. Abdulla Mausoom, Director-General, Maldives Tourism Board

Ms. Banuve Kaumaitotoya, Permanent Secretary for Tourism and Environment, Fiji

Mr. Mahmoud El Kaissouni, Advisor to the Minister on Environment Affairs, Egypt

Mr. Michael Nalletamby, Director-General, Policy and International Cooperation,
Seychelles

Mr. Andrew Skeat, Executive Director, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australia

Panel 2: Mountain Regions and Winter Tourism

Moderated by Mr. Luigi Cabrini, Director, Sustainable Development of Tourism Department,
UNWTO

Dr. Shardul Agrawala, Principal Economist Climate Change, Environment Directorate,
OECD

Dr. Walter Ammann, Conference Chairman IDRC Davos, Swiss Federal Institute for Snow
and Avalanche Research SLF

Mr. Arthur de Jong, Mountain Planning and Environmental Resource Manager, Whistler and
Blackcomb Mountain, Canada

H.E. Mr. Predrag Nenezic, Minister of Tourism and Environment, Montenegro

Mr. André Vallerand, President, World Centre of Excellence for Destinations of Montreal

Panel 3: Nature-based Destinations

Moderated by Mr. Stefanos Fotiou, Programme Ofﬁcer, Tourism and Environment, UNEP

Mr. Wayne Calder, General Manager, Business Development Group, Tourism Division,
Department of Industry,Tourism and Resources, Australia

Dr. Andreas Fischlin, Group Director, Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology, Zurich

Dr. John Hull, Senior Lecturer, AUT University, New Zealand

Ms. Desislava Mihalkova, Chief Expert, State Agency for Tourism, Bulgaria

Ms. Ljubica Milojevic, Senior Advisor for International Tourism Affairs, Ministry of Economy
and Regional Development, Republic of Serbia

Mr Engelbert Ruoss, Director, Venice Ofﬁce, UNESCO

Mr. Bruce Poon Tip, CEO, G.A.P. Adventures, Canada

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism

Plenary Panel Session on Mitigation in the Tourism Industry

Panel 1: Transport, Tour Operation and Accommodation

Moderated by Prof. Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant Secretary-General, UNWTO

Mr. Robert J. Aaronson, Director-General, Airport Council International

Mr. Jeff Gazzard, Aviation Environment Federation, United Kingdom

Mr. Jens Hügel, Head, Sustainable Development, International Road Transport Union

Mr. Michel Lavernhe, Director of Environmental Affairs, AirFrance

Mr. Christopher Lyle, UNWTO Representative to ICAO and Expert on Aviation Issues

Dr. Philippe Rochat, President, Air Transport Action Group

Panel 2: Transport, Tour Operation and Accommodation

Moderated by Mr. Eugenio Yunis, Director of Programme and Coordination, UNWTO

Mr. Martin Brackenbury, President, IFTO

Ms. Thea Chiesa, Associate Director, Head Aviation, Travel & Tourism Industries, World
Economic Forum

Dr. Wolf Michael Iwand, Executive Director, Group Corporate Environmental Management/
Sustainable Development, TUI AG

Dr. Tom Selänniemi, Chairman, Tour operators Initiative

Panel 3: Transport, Tour Operation and Accommodation

Moderated by Mrs. Leslie Malone, Scientiﬁc Ofﬁcer, WMO

Mr. Ghassan Aïdi, President, IH&RA

Mr. Antoni Costa i Costa, President, Paradores, Spain

Mr. Peter de Jong, President and CEO, PATA

Ms. Hélène Roques, Director, Sustainable Development Department, Accor Group, France

Conclusions and Davos Declaration

Co-chaired by

Mr. Luigi Cabrini, Director, Sustainable Development of Tourism Department, UNWTO

Mr. Stefanos Fotiou, Programme Ofﬁcer, Tourism and Environment, UNEP

Prof. Dr. Peter Keller, Head Tourism, State Secretariat Economic Affairs, Switzerland

Prof. Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant Secretary-General, UNWTO

Mrs. Leslie Malone, Scientiﬁc Ofﬁcer, WMO

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

1.2 Conclusions from the Panel Sessions

The following conclusions have been derived from presentations delivered by panellists representing
public, private, NGO and research institutions, and the subsequent interventions and debates involving
the audience at the Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourismus, held in Davos,
Swizerland, 1–3 October 2007.

1.2.1 Adaptation Responses in Speciﬁc Types of Destinations

1.2.1.1 Coastal and island destinations

Conclusions:

Beach tourism remains the dominating market segment, constituting a key part of the economy of
most SIDS and developing countries.

Coastal and island destinations are highly vulnerable to direct and indirect impacts of climate change
(such as storms and extreme climatic events, coastal erosion, physical damage to infrastructure,
sea level rise, ﬂooding, water shortages and water contamination), given that most infrastructure
is located within short distance of the shoreline. This high vulnerability often couples with a low
adaptive capacity, especially in SIDS and coastal destinations of developing countries.

The strong seasonality of beach tourism has to be taken into consideration, as it can be exacerbated
by climate change. In many beach destinations the high tourist season coincides with low water
regimes in dry seasons, aggravating water management and environmental issues.

The impacts of climate change and global warming will vary greatly in the different coastal regions,
and might bring opportunities as well. For example, in traditional summer beach destinations (like
the Mediterranean) shoulder seasons might lengthen, and winter season might be more appealing
to tourists, providing opportunities to reduce seasonality and expand the tourism product. Northern
coastal areas might beneﬁt from warmer summers, attracting more tourists and lengthening summer
season.

Recommended measures:

‘Soft’ coastal protection to prevent erosion (e.g., reforestation of mangroves, reef protection);

enhanced design, siting standards and planning guidelines for tourism establishments;

integrate climate change factors into regulatory frameworks for tourism development, such as
Environmental Impact Assessment for tourism infrastructure and establishments;

implementation of tourism development plans within the framework of Integrated Coastal Zone
Management (ICZM) processes and spatial planning such as zoning;

shade provision and crop diversiﬁcation;

reduce tourism pressures on coral reefs;

water conservation techniques, such as rainwater storage, the use of water-saving devices, or
waste-water recycling;

diversiﬁcation of the tourism product to less-climate dependent and seasonal activities, such as
ecotourism;

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism

education/awareness raising among tourism businesses and their staff, as well as tourists;

awareness and preparedness to face extreme climatic events and disasters at the national and
local levels through improved coordination between disaster management ofﬁces, tourism
administrations, businesses and host communities;

improved provision of climatic information to the tourism sector through cooperation with national
meteorological services;

insurance cover (or alternative schemes) for the recovery of infrastructural and other damage;

drainage and watershed management to reduce ﬂood and erosion risks;

support protected area management, and other means of the conservation of coastal ecosystems
in order to enhance their resilience.

Climate change adaptation can only been implemented effectively in an integrated policy framework.
Coordination between agencies to allow mainstreaming of climate change and sustainable development
are essential in coastal zones and islands.

Many coastal destinations and most SIDS depend on long-haul ﬂights for their tourism-driven economies.
Mitigation policies should be developed in a way that do not jeopardise the tourism sector of these
destinations.

1.2.1.2 Mountain and winter tourism destinations

Conclusions:

Mountain regions are important destinations for global tourism. Snow cover and pristine
mountain landscapes, the principal attractions for tourism in these regions, are the features that
are most vulnerable to climate change. Besides the negative impacts, climate change can also
bring opportunities in mountain areas. While winter season might shorten, summer season might
lengthen, providing opportunities for other types of outdoor activities and tourism business that
supply them (e.g., trekking, hiking, mountain biking, etc.).

Recommended measures:

Stimulate product and seasonal diversiﬁcation: e.g., creating spas, all-year tourism;

implement snow-making, and make it more efﬁcient;

groom ski slopes to reduce snow depth requirements;

preserve glacier areas;

move ski areas to higher altitudes or to colder north slopes;

improve insurance cover in the face of extreme events and natural disasters (e.g., avalanches);

promote industry partnerships (integration within resorts, cooperation between resorts) to reduce
economic vulnerability and share the cost of snow-making;

educate and raise awareness among tourists about the impacts of global environmental change on
the Alpine landscape;

combine mitigation and adaptation measures into integrated and coherent strategies;

improve water use and protect Alpine watersheds;

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

improve emergency preparedness, implement and improve warning and evacuation systems, and
put avalanche prevention infrastructure into place.

1.2.1.3 Nature-based destinations

Conclusions:

Nature-based tourism relies on a high diversity of tourism resources (landscapes, ﬂagship species,
ecosystems, outdoor activities relying on speciﬁc resources like water level in rivers for canoeing,
etc.). These resources are highly variable in space, and will be affected by climate change in
various ways. It is rather difﬁcult to assess the magnitude of climate change impacts in nature-
based destinations, given this diversity of resources, compared for example to ski resorts, (relying
principally on snow conditions), or coastal resorts (relying mainly on beach and bathing water
conditions). Although ecosystems can be highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, probably
there are good adaptation options in ecotourism, given the wide range of activities that can be
developed and conducted in natural areas. Therefore, there are good possibilities to design effective
adaptation strategies for ecotourism and nature-based destinations.

Recommended measures:

Develop response plans; i.e., water supply planning (in drought susceptible destinations),
risk assessment and preparedness strategies, and implement early warning systems (e.g., for
ﬂooding);

improve adaptive capacity of authorities and managers of protected areas through capacity building
initiatives, especially in biodiversity hotspots of LDCs and developing countries;

establish scientiﬁc monitoring survey programmes to assess ecosystem changes and take necessary
protection measures (monitoring activities could especially focus on species and habitats most
vulnerable to climate change impacts and most important for tourism activities);

promote product diversiﬁcation, for example: opening up new ‘micro destinations’ and attractions
within and adjacent to an already popular national park or heritage site; diversiﬁcation is especially
important where key elements of the nature-based product are threatened (e.g., polar bear watching
in Northern Canada);

carry out re-design or redeﬁnition of protected areas, for example revision of zoning of certain
areas, extending protected area to a larger surface, creation of migratory corridors to allow
threatened species to more easily ﬁnd new geographic ranges;

reduce or remove external stresses such as pollution and in the case of marine resources, agricultural
run-off;

promote the application of integrated tourism carrying capacity assessment techniques (considering
physical, economic, environmental, socio-cultural and managerial aspects) in protected areas as
a tool for tourism planning;

improve visitors and congestion management to prevent overuse of sites and physical impacts of
visitation;

promote mitigation options amongst environmentally conscious eco-tourists, e.g., through
offsetting their trips to nature-based tourism destinations;

ensure active participation of local communities living within or near protected areas, in policy
making and management processes;

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism

take into consideration local and traditional knowledge to develop coping and adaptation
strategies;

develop replicable methodologies and share knowledge across nature-based destinations.

1.2.2 Mitigation Responses in Tourism Sub-Sectors

1.2.2.1 Transportation

Conclusions:

Transportation causes around 75% of the CO

emissions generated by tourism, with aviation

representing the bulk part of it (40%). Although tourism transport has a relatively small share in
current global emissions, there is a need to develop effective mitigation measures, considering
its projected dynamic growth. In the mitigation efforts technological development is still a key
tool, but it is unable to solve the problem of climate change on its own. Therefore, for effective
mitigation in the transport sector there is a need to implement a mix of measures, including
technological improvements, regulatory and market based measures, as well as behavior changes.
In any market-based measures the position of developing countries should be considered carefully
to ensure that poverty reduction objectives are not jeopardized – which might imply increasing
ﬂights to deliver tourism exports.

Recommended measures:

Create a ﬂeet renewal fund;

provide incentives for increased rate of technological development;

increase efﬁciency in routing and air trafﬁc management systems;

develop and install global guidance for off-setting schemes speciﬁcally for use amongst
businesses;

engage an in-depth assessment of the potential impacts of market-based instruments and levies on
the different components of the tourism industry (accommodation, tour operators, travel agencies,
airlines, railway companies, coach business, ferries, etc.) and on different market segments (short-
haul, mid and long-haul, developed and developing countries, domestic and international, etc).
Especially for open and closed trading systems, emission reduction incentives, emission taxation
and trading can be considered;

encourage partnerships between different transport and tourism stakeholders with the objective to
reduce emissions through optimizing the value chain;

promote the use of public transport by integrated actions to boost the use of train and coach in
developed countries (investment in infrastructure such as large scale high speed train, improvement
of international train booking systems, regional train and transport ‘on demand’, improve inter-
modal connections) and actions to safeguard and improve the still highly used rail and coach
systems in most developing countries;

improve consumer awareness and transparency by indicating emissions on transport tickets and
product brochures;

create a standard for carbon footprint labeling on all tourism products, like transport tickets,
accommodations, activities and packages;

involve destinations through actions to create and improve low-carbon transport access (like the
Alpine Pearls Project and the Sri Lanka ‘Earth Lung’ initiative).

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

1.2.2.2 Tour operators

Conclusions:

Tour operators could play a central role in mitigation, through their capacity in inﬂuencing the
whole tourism supply chain, and shape demand patterns. They thus could play a role in customers’
awareness raising and soft mobility product development. Compared to the transport sector, tour
operators and travel agents are probably less sensitive to the possible impacts of mitigation policies:
they sell complete products where travel forms part of a complex holiday experience, well-being
and pleasure. Innovation is a key factor for effective and timely adaptation.

Recommended measures:

Develop and implement soft mobility products (low emissions modes of transport, especially train
and coach, as well as low emissions in accommodation and activities);

improve and develop partnerships between tour operators and railways, especially within
reservation systems;

integrate climate change mitigation criteria within existing initiatives of the tour operator industry,
such as the Tour Operators’ Initiative;

improve computer reservation systems and global distribution systems (CRS and GDS) in order to
calculate GHG emissions, so as to allow travel agents to propose soft mobility products;

adapt national, regional and local promotion and marketing plans, so as to direct the marketing
efforts towards the less carbon intensive markets;

promote tourism at short-haul distances, domestic or between neighboring countries, speciﬁcally
within the often less developed regions near the borders;

develop products with increased length of stay, especially for long-haul and mid haul destinations;

support destinations to introduce adaptations and mitigation measures;

use the tourism industry as a ‘lobby’ for more ambitious national and regional mitigation
strategies.

1.2.2.3 Accommodation establishments

Conclusions:

The accommodation sector represents approximately 20% of emissions generated from tourism
activities, and is an intensive energy user, but there is huge potential for improving its carbon
efﬁciency. Even using existing technologies and best practices, emissions from the accommodation
sector could be reduced by 30–40%. For tourist establishments good energy management should
mean good business, due to the savings in the energy bill. An increasing number of hotel chains,
motivated by external and internal drivers are documenting their energy use and taking action in
order to improve energy-efﬁciency, reduce energy use and apply renewable energy sources. Some
hotel chains have even established climate funds where a small percentage of the proﬁts generated
in their hotels is transferred. Energy management issues form integral part of the numerous
certiﬁcation systems and eco-labels working with accommodation establishments on a voluntary
basis, and are also actively promoted through international schemes, such as the International
Hotels Environment Initiative.

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Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism

There is no explicit evidence that, at present, tourists deliberately select their accommodation
because of such ‘green’ initiatives; other factors, including comfort, price, and facilities dominate,
but there is reason to believe that tourists are supportive of energy-efﬁcient environments.

Tourists on holiday expect and pay for certain luxuries. However, clients may be willing to
participate in energy reduction efforts, if it does not greatly diminish their holiday experience, if it
is easy (or mandatory), or if it saves them money.

The sector must take steps to become more environmentally sustainable, even if initially there are
costs for implementation of the changes (most energy efﬁcient choices prove cost-effective in the
longer term), and even if the customers do not demand it as part of their expectations. In order
to meet the sustainable development goals for energy-efﬁcient operations, the sector must ﬁnd a
way to avoid the fragmentation driven by competitiveness, and work together in order to shape
policies, not just react to them.

Recommended measures:

Energy conservation and efﬁciency in buildings and tourist attractions:

setting targets and benchmarking, apply certiﬁcation;

–

integrating sustainability and customer comfort;

–

motivating employees and customers through awareness-raising and through incentives for

–

energy reduction;

enhanced building siting, and design (orientation, natural ventilation, insulation, etc.);

–

reducing the need for air conditioning where possible;

–

installation of devices that permit heating, cooling and lighting only when the room is

–

occupied;

use of energy-efﬁcient appliances (light bulbs, heat exchangers, etc.);

–

frequent maintenance and cleaning of heating, cooling and refrigeration equipment;

–

use of alternative fuels (e.g., biodiesel) and renewable energy sources (e.g., wind, photovoltaic,
solar, thermal, geothermal, biomass and waste);

integrated emission management (including supply chain management) and wider environmental
management (e.g., waste), designating manager speciﬁed on environmental management systems
(EMS) and emission issues;

awareness-raising among customers on recycling;

development of an environmental ‘Code of Ethics’, (checklist or criteria that a hotel chain
can provide to its suppliers/providers, to help them perform their services to the sector in an
environmentally respectful manner;

capacity building, and climate change and environment related education for managers of the
accommodation establishments and in related sectors; such as architecture, construction and
engineering;

development of a network of climate change focal points in the accommodation sector to promote
activities proposed in the Davos Report and Declaration;

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 2

The international community is taking concerted action against climate change around a commonly
agreed framework led by the United Nations. This UN framework will seek to establish a long term post-
Kyoto roadmap with rapid deployment and targeted milestones. The tourism sector has an important
place in that framework, given its global economic and social value, its role in sustainable development
and its strong relationships with climate.

To support this action the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), jointly with the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with the support
of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Swiss Government, convened the Second International
Conference on Climate Change and Tourism, in Davos, Switzerland, from 1 to 3 October 2007. This
event, building on the results of the First International Conference organised on this topic in Djerba,
Tunisia in 2003, gathered 450 participants from over 80 countries and 22 international organizations,
private sector organizations and companies, research institutions, NGOs and the media, with the aim
of responding in a timely and balanced way to climate change imperatives in the tourism sector. In
preparation of this Conference the organizers commissioned a report to provide an extensive review of
current impacts and analyse options for possible actions.

The Conference agreed that:

climate is a key resource for tourism and the sector is highly sensitive to the impacts of climate
change and global warming, many elements of which are already being felt. It is estimated to
contribute some 5% of global CO

emissions;

tourism – business and leisure – will continue to be a vital component of the global economy, an
important contributor to the Millennium Development Goals and an integral, positive element in
our society;

given tourism’s importance in the global challenges of climate change and poverty reduction, there
is a need to urgently adopt a range of policies which encourages truly sustainable tourism that reﬂects
a ‘quadruple bottom line’ of environmental, social, economic and climate responsiveness;

the tourism sector must rapidly respond to climate change, within the evolving UN framework
and progressively reduce its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) contribution if it is to grow in a sustainable
manner; this will require action to:

mitigate

–

its GHG emissions, derived especially from transport and accommodation activities;

adapt

–

tourism businesses and destinations to changing climate conditions;

apply existing and new

–

technology to improve energy efﬁciency; and

secure

–

ﬁnancial resources to help poor regions and countries.

The Conference calls for the following actions.

Governments and International Organizations:

Incorporate tourism in the implementation of existing commitments under the United Nations

–

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, and respond
to the call by the United Nations Secretary-General for launching, at the 13th session of the

Davos Declaration: Climate Change and

Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Bali, December 2007, an effective and comprehensive
climate change framework for the post-2012 period.

Implement concrete, simultaneous actions for mitigation, adaptation, technology and ﬁnancing,

–

consistent with the Millennium Development Goals.

Provide ﬁnancial, technical and training support to tourism destinations and operators in

–

developing countries (especially in the least developed countries and Small Island Developing
States) to ensure that they can participate in the global climate response framework, through
established initiatives, such as the Clean Development Mechanism.

Promote, at all levels, interdisciplinary partnerships, networks and information exchange

–

systems essential to sustainable development of the sector.

Collaborate in international strategies, policies and action plans to reduce GHG emissions in

–

the transport (in cooperation with ICAO and other aviation organizations), accommodation and
related tourism activities.

Introduce education and awareness programs for all tourism stakeholders – public and private

–

sector – as well as consumers.

Develop regional and local climate information services tailored to the tourism sector and promote

–

their use among tourism stakeholders. Build capacities for interpretation and application of this
information, strengthening collaboration with WMO’s National Meteorological Services.

Implement policy, regulatory, ﬁnancial, managerial, educational, behavioural, diversiﬁcation,

–

research and monitoring measures, for effective adaptation and mitigation.

Tourism Industry and Destinations

Take leadership in implementing concrete measures (such as incentives) in order to mitigate

–

climate change throughout the tourism value chain and to reduce risk to travellers, operators
and infrastructure due to dynamic climate variability and shift. Establish targets and indicators
to monitor progress.

Promote and undertake investments in energy-efﬁciency tourism programmes and use of

–

renewable energy resources, with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint of the entire tourism
sector.

Integrate tourism in the formulation and implementation of regional, national and local level

–

adaptation and mitigation strategies and implementation plans. The Nairobi Work Programme on
Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change, coordinated by UNFCCC, represents
an important opportunity for the tourism sector to enhance knowledge, increase capacities and
stimulate action.

Strive to conserve biodiversity, natural ecosystems and landscapes in ways which strengthen

–

resilience to climate change and ensure a long-term sustainable use of the environmental resource
base of tourism – in particular those that serve as ‘earth lungs’ (carbon sinks), sequestering
GHGs through forest management and other biological programmes, or that protect coastlines
(e.g., mangroves and coral reefs).

Seek to achieve increasingly carbon free environments by diminishing pollution through design,

–

operations and market responsive mechanisms.

Implement climate-focused product diversiﬁcation, to reposition destinations and support

–

systems, as well as to foster all-season supply and demand.

Raise awareness among customers and staff on climate change impacts and engage them in

–

response processes.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Davos Declaration: Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

3) Consumers:

In their choices for travel and destination, tourists should be encouraged to consider the climate,

–

economic, societal and environmental impacts of their options before making a decision and,
where possible to reduce their carbon footprint, or offset emissions that cannot be reduced
directly.

In their choices of activities at the destination, tourists should also be encouraged to opt for

–

environmentally-friendly activities that reduce their carbon footprint as well as contribute to the
preservation of the natural environment and cultural heritage.

Research and Communications Networks:

Encourage targeted, multi-disciplinary research on impacts of climate change in order to address

–

regional gaps in current knowledge, develop tools for risk assessment and cost-beneﬁt analyses
with which to gauge the feasibility of various responses.

Include environmental and climate speciﬁc subjects in the study curricula of tourism training

–

programmes and extend these to broader educational systems.

Promote responsible travel that supports ‘quadruple bottom line’ sustainable tourism,

–

incorporating climate, environmental, social and economic considerations.

Raise awareness on tourism’s economic role as a tool for development, and present information

–

on causes and effects of climate change based on sound science, in a fair, balanced and user-
friendly manner.

The Conference

Sets out a range of speciﬁc actions to be taken by all stakeholders in the sector to immediately
begin to establish and implement a long range carbon-neutral roadmap.

Invites governments and international organizations, the tourism industry, consumers, research and
communications networks to implement these recommendations, with concrete commitments and
action plans, and to use the UNWTO on-line Climate Change and Tourism Information Exchange
Service as a platform, for committed stakeholders to register their pledges and activities toward
adaptation and mitigation on an on-going basis.

Stresses the need that UNWTO, in collaboration with UNEP and WMO, continue to lead this
process, and to consider convening a Third Conference on Climate Change and Tourism, at an
appropriate time in the future, to review progress, to maintain response levels and to identify
further needs and actions.

Urges action by the entire tourism sector to face climate change as one of the greatest challenges
to sustainable development, and to the Millennium Development Goals in the 21st Century.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 3

The participants to the Ministers’ Summit on Tourism and Climate Change gathered in London, UK
on 13 November 2007 welcome the initiatives taken by the tourism sector, under the leadership of
UNWTO in cooperation with UNEP and WMO, to address the causes and consequences of climate
change for the tourism sector.

The participants strongly endorse the Davos Declaration and urge all tourism stakeholders to follow
its recommendations. Some delegations made however speciﬁc comments, and request the Secretary-
General of UNWTO to report on them to the UNWTO General Assembly and at the Bali summit on
climate change.

The Delegation of Australia wishes to record the following statement:

“Tourism Ministers support effective global action to address climate change. Policy responses
should be balanced and comprehensive and focus on measures which are economically efﬁcient.
The tourism sector must play a strong role as part of a broader response to climate change;
however it should not be disadvantaged through the imposition of a disproportionate burden
either on tourism as a whole or on vital components such as aviation”.

The Delegation of Bangladesh wishes to stress that special consideration should be given to Least
Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in the provision of ﬁnancial, technical and
training support to tourism destinations and operators. A speciﬁc mention should be made to support their
National Adaptation Programmes of Action on climate change through contributions to the UNFCCC
LDC Trust Fund. It also suggests to add a speciﬁc reference to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, when
describing actions addressed at conserving biodiversity, natural ecosystems and landscape.

The delegation of India wishes to put on record the following statements:

“India is acutely aware of the considerable challenge we face today from climate change. We,
like other developing countries, bear an inordinate share of the burden of climate change even
though this is due to high-level emissions of developed countries. In such circumstances, we
must signiﬁcantly shore up our abilities to cope with and adapt to climate change. To be able to
do so, we need development, which is also the best form of adaptation.”

“The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has one of the largest numbers
of State Parties of any multilateral instrument. It is, therefore, appropriate that matters relating to
climate change are addressed in the UNFCCC. At the UNWTO we need to try and take stock
of the situation as it affects our sector and see what can be done to adapt to the inevitability of
further global warming, especially as far as developing countries are concerned.”

The delegation of Brazil wishes to reinforce the principle of common and differentiated responsibilities
(as included in the UNFCCC), especially in the section of the Davos Declaration calling for actions of
the different stakeholders. It also suggests to add the following paragraph under the section relating to
actions from Governments and international Organizations: “Assist developing countries where the
tourism sector is particularly vulnerable to the adverse effect of climate change, in order to allow them
to meet the related costs of adaptation”.

Conclusions of the Ministers’ Summit

on Tourism and Climate Change

(London, United Kingdom, 13 November 2007)

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 4

The General Assembly,

Having taken cognizance of the document relative to climate change and tourism and of the report of
the Secretary-General.

Taking into account that the effects of climate change have already a serious impact on several tourism
destinations; that certain activities relating to the tourism sector generate only a small proportion of the
total greenhouse gas emissions; that there is scientiﬁc evidence that global warming will continue to
increase at an alarming rate if substantial remedial actions are not taken.

Expresses

its appreciation for the active engagement of the UNWTO Secretariat to analyse the

complex issues deriving from the inter-relations between climate change and tourism with a view
to taking effective measures of adaptation and mitigation, through transfer of advanced clean
technologies, to combat the effects of warming on the tourism sector;

Expresses

its appreciation to the Secretary-General for having organized the Djerba Conference on

9-11 April 2003, the Davos Conference on 1-3 October 2007 and the London Ministerial Summit
on 13 November 2007, which generated meaningful discussions on climate change and tourism;

Takes note

with satisfaction of the participation in these two events of the tourism authorities of

a broad number of countries, and of a wide spectrum of tourism stakeholders from the public
and private sector and welcomes the exchange of views on the problems and the actions to be
undertaken;

Takes note

of the main elements of the Davos Declaration issued on 3 October 2007 and of the

conclusions reached at the London Ministerial Summit on 13 November and emphasizes that the
recommendations emanating from these fora should not discriminate against developing countries
by creating obstacles to their economic development and in particular of those developing
countries located at long distance from tourists generating markets;

Recognizes

the urgent need for the tourism sector to adapt to climate change conditions; to mitigate

greenhouse gas emissions in line with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities
included in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); to help the
transfer of new technologies especially through the clean development mechanism and to make
efforts to secure ﬁnancial resources to assist developing countries which are especially vulnerable
to climate change; and calls on governments, international organizations, professionals of the
tourism sector, media, and other actors to engage in the response to one of the greatest challenges
of our times;

Reiterates

the importance for the tourism sector to identify consensus measures to address climate

change but without losing sight of all other priorities, especially poverty alleviation and tourism
contribution to Millennium Development Goals;

Takes note

with interest of the preliminary ﬁndings of the technical study on climate change and

tourism undertaken by a group of experts under the supervision of UNWTO in cooperation with
the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) and welcomes comments from the State members after the ﬁnal report has been circulated
by the Secretary-General; and

Resolution on Tourism and Climate Change

adopted by UNWTO General Assembly,

Seventeenth Session

(Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 23–29 November 2007)

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 5

Mr. President,

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Tourism contributes to global warming, and, at the same time, is a victim of climate change.

Tourism is a central phenomenon of today’s word. It has become globalised. It is growing spectacularly,
from 165 millions international arrivals in 1970, to 846 millions last year, and, undoubtedly, 1.6 billion
by 2020. And this, without including domestic travel.

A phenomenon of such magnitude could not remain without consequences for the climate on account
of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by trips and stays. In turn, the warming caused by major
human activities profoundly alters the conditions of tourism development. Small tropical islands and
medium-altitude ski resorts are the ﬁrst destinations to be affected. Others will follow, those for which
the product is based on forests, glaciers, biodiversity and wildlife.

* * *

I have two messages for you today.

The ﬁrst message is that the tourism community will not shrink back. It will participate in the
common effort led by the United Nations. Two weeks ago, the General Assembly of the World Tourism
Organization responsibly engaged itself. A consensus has been forged among our 153 members. I hope
this Conference will reach the same level of consensus.

UNWTO members agreed that we should not sidestep the issue, by arguing that the contribution of
travel and tourism to greenhouse gas emissions is limited to 5% of the total – half of which for passenger
air transport. It is true, but it is not a valid excuse.

You can count on us. We are ready to take up our share of the burden. But, by the same token, we are
also within our rights to tell the public opinion and the media: do not unfairly target tourism! It is an
activity just as respectable as others, which satisﬁes needs that are just as essential.

* * *

I have a second message: never forget that tourism generates wealth, creates jobs, and contributes to
the alleviation of poverty.

Those who say: “do not travel far from home and avoid taking planes to save several tons of carbon
emissions”, should think twice. Because these long-haul trips are often to countries that are home to
the planet’s poorest populations, which – we know – will already be the ﬁrst victims of warming. These
communities, like Bali, would be doubly affected if we also deprive them of the economic contribution
of tourism.

* * *

Statement by Francesco Frangialli,

Secretary-General of UNWTO, on the Occasion

of the UN Conference on Climate Change

(Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, 12 December 2007)

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 6

Executive Summary

6.1 The New Realities of Tourism in an Era of Global Climate Change

Compelling evidence indicates that global climate has changed compared to the pre-industrial era and
is anticipated to continue to change over the 21st century and beyond. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC)

declared that “[…] warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” The global

mean temperature has increased approximately 0.76° C between 1850–1899 and 2001–2005 and the
IPCC

concluded that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th

century is very likely (> 90% probability) the result of human activities that are increasing greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Discernible human inﬂuences now also extend to other aspects
of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and
wind patterns.

Widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps and warming ocean surface temperature

have contributed to sea level rise of 1.8 mm per year from 1961 to 2003, and approximately 3.1 mm
per year from 1993 to 2003. The biological response of ecosystems and individual species has been
recorded on every continent.

The IPCC

has projected that the pace of climate change is very likely (> 90% probability) to accelerate

with continued greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at or above current rates, with the best estimate that
globally averaged surface temperatures will rise by 1.8° C to 4.0° C by the end of the 21st century.

Even

if atmospheric concentrations of GHGs were stabilized at current levels, the Earth would continue to
warm as a result of past GHG emissions and the thermal inertia of the oceans. The biological response
to this continued warming and sea level rise would continue for several centuries.

Future changes in temperatures and other important features of climate will manifest themselves
differently across the regions of the world (Figure 6.1). According to the IPCC, it is very likely that
hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent. It is
likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger
peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea
surface temperatures. There is less conﬁdence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical
cyclones. The extension of the regions that will be primary affected by these extreme events with major
tourism destinations highlights the need for awareness and preparedness for natural hazards at the
local level through systematic capacity building and strategies for disaster risk management. Extra-
tropical storm tracks are projected to shift poleward, with consequent changes in wind, precipitation
and temperature patterns, continuing the broad pattern of observed trends over the last half-century.
Observed decreases in snow cover are also projected to continue.

The environmental and economic risks of the magnitude of climate change projected for the 21st century
are considerable and have featured prominently in recent international policy debates.

8, 9, 10

The IPCC

concluded with very high conﬁdence

that climate change would impede the ability of many nations

to achieve sustainable development by mid-century. The Stern Review

on the Economics of Climate

Change found that the costs of taking action to reduce GHG emissions now, are much smaller than the
costs of economic and social disruption from unmitigated climate change.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

With its close connections to the environment and climate itself, tourism is considered to be a highly
climate-sensitive economic sector similar to agriculture, insurance, energy, and transportation.

The

regional manifestations of climate change will be highly relevant for tourism destinations and tourists
alike, requiring adaptation by all major tourism stakeholders. Indeed, climate change is not a remote
future event for tourism, as the varied impacts of a changing climate are becoming evident at destinations
around the world and climate change is already inﬂuencing decision-making in the tourism sector.

At the same time, the tourism sector is a non-negligible contributor to climate change through GHG
emissions derived especially from the transport and accommodation of tourists.

20, 21

Tourism must seek

to signiﬁcantly reduce its GHG emissions in accordance with the international community, which at the
“Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007” recognized that global emissions of GHG need to peak in the next
10–15 years and then be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by mid-century. *
The tourism sector can not address the challenge of climate change in isolation, but must do so within
the context of the broader international sustainable development agenda.

22, 23

The critical challenge

before the global tourism sector is to develop a coherent policy strategy that decouples the projected
massive growth in tourism in the decades ahead from increased energy use and GHG emissions, so as
to allow tourism growth to simultaneously contribute to poverty alleviation and play a major role in
achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

“Climate change as well as poverty alleviation will remain central issues for the world community.
Tourism is an important element in both. Governments and the private sector must place increased
importance on these factors in tourism development strategies and in climate and poverty strategies.
They are interdependent and must be dealt with in a holistic fashion.”

Francesco Frangialli, UNWTO Secretary-General (2007)

Tourism can play a signiﬁcant role in addressing climate change if the innovativeness and resources
of this vital global economic sector are fully mobilized and oriented towards this goal. The concern of
the tourism community regarding the challenge of climate change has visibly increased over the last
ﬁve years. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and several partner organizations, including
UNEP, convened the First International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism in Djerba, Tunisia
in 2003. This event was a watershed in terms of raising awareness about the implications of climate
change within the international tourism community. The Djerba Declaration recognized the complex
inter-linkages between the tourism sector and climate change and established a framework for future
research and policy making on adaptation and mitigation.

A number of individual tourism industry

associations and businesses have also shown leadership on climate change, voluntarily adopting GHG
emission reduction targets, engaging in public education campaigns on climate change and supporting
government climate change legislation.

“Far sighted action by the US$ 880 billion international tourism industry will send important
signals to governments, industries and the public that mitigation and adaptation to the climate
change challenge make economic and environmental sense. It is the kind of leadership that can
encourage others to look not only to their exposure and to the risks posed by climate change, but
also to the abundant opportunities and beneﬁts of cost effective action.”

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director (2007)

The scientiﬁc community has also responded, doubling the number of scientiﬁc publications that
examine the interactions of tourism and climate change between 1996–2000 and 2001–2005

and signiﬁcantly advancing the place of tourism in the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4) relative to
previous assessments.

In 2006, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established an Expert

Team on Climate and Tourism in collaboration with the UNWTO, with the broad mandate to advance

The “Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007” represent the latest international negotiations on GHG emission reductions under
the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2007/
unisinf230.html.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

the application of weather and climate information in the tourism sector and understanding of the
implications of climate change.

6.2 Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

The tourism industry and destinations are clearly sensitive to climate variability and change.

27, 28, 29, 30,

Climate deﬁnes the length and quality of tourism seasons and plays a major role in destination choice

and tourist spending. In many destinations tourism is closely linked with the natural environment.
Climate affects a wide range of the environmental resources that are critical attractions for tourism, such
as snow conditions, wildlife productivity and biodiversity, water levels and quality. Climate also has an
important inﬂuence on environmental conditions that can deter tourists, including infectious disease,
wildﬁres, insect or water-borne pests (e.g., jellyﬁsh, algae blooms), and extreme events such as tropical
cyclones.

There are four broad categories of climate change impacts that will affect tourism destinations, their
competitiveness and sustainability.

Direct climatic impacts: Climate is a principal resource for tourism, as it co-determines the suitability
of locations for a wide range of tourist activities, is a principal driver of global seasonality in tourism
demand, and has an important inﬂuence on operating costs, such as heating-cooling, snow-making,
irrigation, food and water supply, and insurance costs. Thus, changes in the length and quality of
climate-dependent tourism seasons (i.e., sun-and-sea or winter sports holidays) could have considerable
implications for competitive relationships between destinations and therefore the proﬁtability of tourism
enterprises. Studies indicate that a shift of attractive climatic conditions for tourism towards higher
latitudes and altitudes is very likely.

32, 33, 34

As a result, the competitive position of some popular

holiday areas are anticipated to decline (e.g., the Mediterranean in summer), whereas other areas (e.g.,
southern England or southern Canada) are expected to improve. Uncertainties related to tourist climate
preference and destination loyalty require attention if the implications for the geographic and seasonal
redistribution of visitor ﬂows are to be projected. There are well established vulnerabilities among
winter sports destinations to projected declines in natural snowfall. Even with increased snow-making,
contractions in the ski industry are very likely in the European Alps, Eastern and Western North America,
Australia, and Japan, although projected impacts on destinations in these nations vary in magnitude and
over different time horizons.

35, 36, 37

The IPCC

has concluded that changes in a number of weather extremes are probable as a result of

projected climate change, including: higher maximum temperature and more hot days over nearly
all land areas (very likely), greater tropical storm intensity and peak winds (likely), more intense
precipitation events over many land areas (very likely), and longer and more severe droughts in many
mid-latitude continental interiors (likely). Such changes will affect the tourism industry through increased
infrastructure damage, additional emergency preparedness requirements, higher operating expenses
(e.g., insurance, backup water and power systems, and evacuations), and business interruptions.

Indirect environmental change impacts: Because environmental conditions are such a critical resource
for tourism, a wide-range of climate-induced environmental changes will have profound effects on
tourism at the destination and regional level. Changes in water availability, biodiversity loss, reduced
landscape aesthetic, altered agricultural production (e.g., wine tourism), increased natural hazards,
coastal erosion and inundation, damage to infrastructure and the increasing incidence of vector-borne
diseases will all impact tourism to varying degrees. In contrast to the varied impacts of a changed
climate on tourism, the indirect effects of climate induced environmental change are likely to be
largely negative. Mountain, island, and coastal destinations are considered particularly sensitive to
climate-induced environmental change, as are nature-based tourism market segments.

39, 40, 41, 42, 43

UNESCO has also identiﬁed several World Heritage Sites that are critical tourist destinations, to be
vulnerable to climate-induced environmental change (e.g., Venice, Italy – sea level rise; Great Barrier
Reef, Australia – coral bleaching and mortality; Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park, USA and
Canada – glacier retreat; and Chan Chan Archaeological Zone, Peru – El Niño-Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) caused ﬂooding and eroding).

While our understanding of the impacts of climate change for

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

various destination types has improved since the Djerba Conference, it is important to emphasize that
there remain major regional gaps in our knowledge of how climate change will affect the natural and
cultural resources critical for tourism in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East and large
parts of East Asia.

Impacts of mitigation policies on tourist mobility: National or international mitigation policies – that
are policies that seek to reduce GHG emissions – are likely to have an impact on tourist ﬂows. They
will lead to an increase in transport costs and may foster environmental attitudes that lead tourists to
change their travel patterns (e.g., shift transport mode or destination choices). There has been substantial
recent media coverage on this topic, speciﬁcally as it relates to air travel. Long-haul destinations can
be particularly affected and ofﬁcials in Southeast Asia, Australia-New Zealand, and the Caribbean have
expressed concern that mitigation policies could adversely impact their national tourism economy.

46, 47,

On the other hand, emission scenario projections developed for this report indicate that opportunities

may arise for low carbon emission transport modes like coach and rail. This may also help to re-vitalize
destinations that are nearer to the main markets.

Indirect societal change impacts: Climate change is thought to pose a risk to future economic growth
and to the political stability of some nations.

49, 50, 51, 52

The Stern Report on the Economics of Climate

Change concluded that although a global warming of only 1° C might beneﬁt global GDP, greater
climate change would eventually damage economic growth at the global scale, including the stark
conclusion that unmitigated climate change could cause a reduction in consumption per capita of 20%
later in the 21st century or early 22nd century.

Any such reduction of global GDP due to climate

change would reduce the discretionary wealth available to consumers for tourism and have negative
implications for anticipated future growth in tourism; however there has been no in-depth interpretation
of the Stern Report

for the tourism sector.

“Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and
social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the
great wars and the economic depression of the ﬁrst half of the 20th century.”

The Stern Report (2006)

Climate change is considered a national and international security risk that will steadily intensify,
particularly under greater warming scenarios.

55, 56, 57

Climate change associated security risks have

been identiﬁed in a number of regions where tourism is highly important to local/national economies.

58, 59, 60

Tourists, particularly international tourists, are averse to political instability and social unrest,

61,

and the negative tourism demand repercussions for the climate change security hotspots

are very

evident. A security-related decline in tourism would exacerbate deteriorating economic performance in
these destinations, potentially undermining development objectives in some LDCs.

64, 65, 66, 67

Destination vulnerability hotspots: The integrated effects of climate change will have far-reaching
consequences for tourism businesses and destinations. Importantly, climate change will generate
both negative and positive impacts in the tourism sector and these impacts will vary substantially by
market segment and geographic region. The implications of climate change for any tourism business or
destination will also partially depend on the impacts on its competitors. A negative impact in one part of
the tourism system may constitute an opportunity elsewhere. Consequently, there will be ‘winners and
losers’ at the business, destination and nation level. Figure 6.2 provides a summary assessment of the
most at-risk tourism destinations for the mid- to late-21st century. Due to the very limited information
available on the potential impacts of climate change in some tourism regions, this qualitative assessment
must also be considered with caution. Until systematic regional level assessments are conducted a
deﬁnitive statement on the net economic or social impacts in the tourism sector will not be possible.
Furthermore, the outcome most likely will depend on the extent of climate change. The impact on the
tourism sector may strongly parallel that of the global economy, where a 1° C temperature rise may
result in a net beneﬁt for the world economy, but greater increases increasingly show net declines.

Destination level adaptation: It is now recognised that regardless of the emissions reduction efforts,
there is an inevitable need for societies around the world to adapt to unavoidable changes in climate.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

It is essential to emphasize that regardless of the nature and magnitude of climate change impacts,

all tourism businesses and destinations will need to adapt to climate change in order to minimize
associated risks and capitalize upon new opportunities, in an economically, socially and environmentally
sustainable manner.

Tourists have the greatest adaptive capacity (depending on three key resources: money, knowledge
and time) with relative freedom to avoid destinations impacted by climate change or shifting the
timing of travel to avoid unfavourable climate conditions. Suppliers of tourism services and tourism
operators at speciﬁc destinations have less adaptive capacity. Large tour operators, who do not own the
infrastructure, are in a better position to adapt to changes at destinations because they can respond to
clients demands and provide information to inﬂuence clients’ travel choices. Destination communities
and tourism operators with large investment in immobile capital assets (e.g., hotel, resort complex,
marina or casino) have the least adaptive capacity.

The dynamic nature of the tourism industry and its ability to cope with a range of recent major shocks,
including SARS, terrorism attacks in a number of nations, or the Asian tsunami, suggests a relatively
high adaptive capacity within the tourism industry overall. The capacity to adapt to climate change is
thought to vary substantially between sub-sectors, destinations, and individual businesses within the
tourism industry.

70, 71, 72, 73, 74

“It is vital for tourism destinations […] to anticipate the coming changes and to draw their
consequences, starting now. [Adaptation] is a long-term project that must be anticipated and
carefully prepared beforehand; it is not easy to see this through successfully, because it entails,
all at the same time, modifying economic circuits, introducing new technologies, carrying out
intensive training, investing in the creation of new products, […] changing the minds of public
authorities, entrepreneurs, host communities and tourists.”

Francesco Frangialli, UNWTO Secretary-General (2007)

The tourism sector has been adapting its operations to climate zones world-wide, using a diverse range
of technological, managerial, educational, policy and behavioural adaptations to deal with climate
variability. However, adaptation has ﬁgured less prominently in climate change research on tourism than
in some other economic sectors (e.g., agriculture). There has been a range of research activities focusing
on climate change impacts for destinations or speciﬁc tourism sectors (e.g., ski operations), but they
generally have not identiﬁed properly the range of adaptation options available to tourism stakeholders.
Due to a lack of integration of adaptation measures in impact analysis studies, the perspectives on
projected impacts may be misleading.

Much more needs to be done to incorporate adaptation into future impact assessments in the tourism
sector given its high adaptive capacity. Second, knowledge of the capability of current climate adaptations
to cope successfully with future climate change remains rudimentary.

An important lesson learned

from Hurricane Katrina and the extremely warm winter of 2006–2007 in the European Alps is that
adaptations can be overwhelmed by events unexpected and beyond the range of experience of the
tourism sector. Such events should be anticipated under climate change, and consequently there is a
critical need for the tourism sector to evaluate the effectiveness of current adaptations under projected
climate conditions. In an era of global climate change, it will no longer be sufﬁcient to rely on past
experience. The information requirements for effective, anticipatory climate change adaptation will be
substantial and therefore adaptation is a critical area for future research.

Climate change is slowly entering into decision-making of a range of tourism stakeholders (e.g.,
investors, insurance companies, tourism enterprises, governments, and tourists); studies that have
examined the climate change risk appraisal of local tourism ofﬁcials and operators have consistently
found relatively low levels of concern and little evidence of long-term strategic planning in anticipation
of future changes in climate.

76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83

There is also some evidence that local tourism

Key destination vulnerabilities are identiﬁed at the sub-regional scale in the full technical report.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

operators may be overestimating their adaptive capacity (e.g., capacity to make snow under the warmest
scenarios). The incorporation of adaptation to climate change into the collective minds of private and
public sector tourism decision-makers (‘mainstreaming’) remains several steps away. Consequently,
there is a real need for effective communication between the climate change science community and
tourism operators at the regional and local scale, particularly with respect to the development of climate
change scenarios and indicators catered toward local tourism decision-making.

Figure

6.2 Geographic distribution of major climate change impacts affecting tourism

destinations*

* Key destination vulnerabilities are identified at the sub-regional scale in the full technical report

6.3 Implications of Climate Change for Tourism Demand Patterns

Climate, the natural environment, and personal safety are three primary factors in destination choice,
and global climate change is anticipated to have signiﬁcant impacts on all three of these factors at the
regional level. Tourists also have the greatest capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change, with
relative freedom to avoid destinations impacted by climate change or shifting the timing of travel to
avoid unfavourable climate conditions. As such, the response of tourists to the complexity of destination
impacts will reshape demand patterns and play a pivotal role in the eventual impacts of climate change
on the tourism industry. Understanding and anticipating the potential geographic and seasonal shifts in
tourist demand will remain critical areas of research in the future.

The evidence available from studies that have explored the potential impact of altered climate conditions
for tourist demand suggests that the geographic and seasonal redistribution of tourist demand may
be very large for individual destinations and countries by mid- to late-century.

84, 85

Anticipated

impacts include a gradual shift in preferred destinations to higher latitudes and to higher elevations in
mountainous areas. Tourists from temperate nations that currently dominate international travel (e.g.,
Northern Europe) are expected to spend more holidays in their home country or nearby, adapting their

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

travel patterns to take advantage of new climatic opportunities closer to home. Tourism seasons will be
altered with possibly more tourists travelling in shoulder seasons, or in winter seasons, as climate will be
more appealing. This shift in travel patterns may have important implications, including proportionally
more tourism spending in temperate nations and proportionally less spending in warmer nations now
frequented by tourists from temperate regions. The direct effect of climate change might be signiﬁcant
enough to alter major intra-regional tourism ﬂows where climate is of paramount importance, including
Northern Europe to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, North America to the Caribbean, and to a
lesser extent North East Asia to Southeast Asia. However, the net effect of a change in climate on tourist
demand at the global scale is expected to be limited, as there is no evidence to suggest that a change in
climate will directly lead to a signiﬁcant reduction of the global volume of tourism.

It is important to emphasize that it is the holistic impact of climate change on tourism environments that
tourists will respond to, not just changes in climatic conditions.

86, 87

Tourism demand at the regional

scale will also be affected by the range of indirect environmental and social impacts brought about by
global climate change. The indirect impacts of global climate change are anticipated to inﬂuence tourist
demand for speciﬁc destinations and perhaps at the regional level where political destabilization may
occur, but not affect tourism demand at the global level, unless, as some economic analyses indicate,

global economic growth were to be adversely affected by climatic change.

The perceptions of future impacts of climate change are likely to play the central role in the decision-
making of tourists and tourism investors alike, as perceptions of climate conditions or environmental
changes are just as important to consumer choices as the actual conditions. Perceptions of climate
change impacts in a region are often heavily inﬂuenced by the nature of media coverage. Speculation
and misinformation about the impacts of climate change on tourism destinations already abounds in
the media, particularly with regard to the demise of the ski industry and extreme summer temperatures
in the Mediterranean region.

The combination of increased awareness of the potential environmental impacts of air travel, as reﬂected
in a number of recent public opinion polls,

89, 90, 91

and national or international mitigation policies that

increase the costs of travel, will also have important implications for shaping tourist demand. Current
understanding of how price increases for travel may alter tourist mobility remains low. Past studies that
have analysed the price sensitivity of air passengers, for example, show moderate

inelasticity (–0.7).

Recent market surveys have also identiﬁed highly varied willingness to pay to offset the environmental
consequences of air travel.

94, 95

The perception of transport, and in particular air travel, in relation to its

carbon footprint is also likely to be an important inﬂuence on tourists’ responses to price changes.

Information on tourist climate preferences and key thresholds (i.e., temperature limits for a beach
holiday), tourist perceptions of the environmental impacts of global climate change at destinations (i.e.,
perceptions of coral bleaching, diminished or lost glaciers, degraded coastlines, reduced biodiversity
or wildlife prevalence), and tourist perceptions of the environmental impacts of tourism related travel
and their willingness to pay to reduce this impact, remain important knowledge gaps that need to be
addressed if potential long-range shifts in tourist demand are to be more accurately projected. There is
also limited understanding of how climate change impacts will interact with other longer term social and
market trends inﬂuencing tourism demand (e.g., globalization and economic ﬂuctuations, fuel prices,
aging populations in industrialized countries, increasing travel safety and health concerns, increased
environmental and cultural awareness, advances in information and transportation technology).

6.4 Emissions from Global Climate Tourism: Status and Trends

The contribution of tourism to human-induced climate change has never been comprehensively
assessed. This report represents the ﬁrst attempt to calculate emissions of CO

from three main tourism

sub-sectors – transportation, accommodations, and activities – as well as the contribution to radiative
forcing (i.e. including all greenhouse gases) for the year 2005. Tourism in this report refers to “[…] the
activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than
one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

remunerated from within the place visited.”

* Existing databases on tourism are not directly suitable for

emission inventories, so UNWTO prepared a speciﬁc database for this project with data provided for
the baseline year of 2005.

** In order to reﬁne calculations of GHG emissions from the tourism sector

and effectively monitor progress on GHG emission reductions in the future, a strategic reassessment
of the current system of tourism statistics will be required so that appropriate data are collected at the
necessary spatial and temporal resolutions.

While CO

is the most important greenhouse gas from human activities, other greenhouse gases also

make signiﬁcant contributions to global warming. In the tourism sector, this is particularly relevant for
emissions from aviation, which, at ﬂight altitude, has an enhanced impact on global warming. Radiative
forcing is thus used to calculate the entire contribution of tourist (air) travel to global warming. Radiative
forcing measures the extent to which emissions of greenhouse gases raise global average temperatures
now or at a speciﬁed year in the future (estimates of tourism contribution to radiative forcing will be
analyzed in the full report).

International and domestic tourism emissions from three main sub-sectors are estimated to represent
between 3.9% and 6.0% of global emissions in 2005, with a best estimate of 4.9%.

Table 6.1 Estimated emissions from global tourism (including same-day visitors), 2005

(a), (b)

(Mt)

Air transport

515

Car

420

Other transport

Accommodation

274

Activities

TOTAL

1,302

Total world

(c)

26,400

Share (%)

4.9

(a) Estimates include international and domestic tourist trips, as well as same-day visitors (base year 2005).

(b) Colours represent the degree of certainty with respect to the data and underlying assumptions. Green represents a degree of

uncertainty of +/-10%, blue +/-25% and red +100%/-50%.

(c) Annual fossil carbon dioxide emissions (including those from cement production), according to IPCC (2007a), The Physical Science

Basis.

Table 6.1 shows the results of the emissions for global tourism in 2005. Figure 6.3 shows that in
2005 transport generated the largest proportion of CO

emissions (75%) from global tourism, with

approximately 40% of the total being caused by air transport alone. Emissions from accommodation
and activities were estimated to be substantially lower than transport emissions, but emissions from the
accommodation sub-sector are also not negligible.

As deﬁned by the UNWTO/United Nations Recommendations on Tourism Statistics.

Note that this database contains estimates, as not all data needed for calculations are available. For instance, there are only
estimates for domestic tourism, whose volume is several times larger than international tourism, particularly in large nations
like the United States, Russia, China and Canada.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Figure 6.3 Contribution of various tourism sub-sectors to CO

emissions (%)

100

Activities

Accommodation

Other transport

Car transport

Air transport

-emissions

Shar

es per tourism element

The analysis also showed that emissions can vary greatly per tourist trip, between a few kilograms
of CO

up to 9 t CO

for long-distance, cruise-based journeys. A globally averaged tourist journey is

estimated to generate 0.25 t of CO

emissions. A small share of tourist trips, however, emits much more

than this: while the aviation based trips account for 17% of all tourism trips, they cause about 40% of
CO

emissions from tourism. Long-haul travel by air between the ﬁve UNWTO world tourism regions

represents only 2.2% of all tourist trips, but contributes 16% to global tourism-related CO

emissions.

In contrast, international tourist trips (i.e., overnight tourist trips) by coach and rail, which account for
an estimated 16% of international tourist trips, stand only for 1% of CO

emissions generated by all

international tourist trips (transport emissions only).

These results show that mitigation initiatives in the tourism sector will need to strategically focus on the
impact of some particular forms of tourism (i.e., particularly those connected with air travel) if substantial
reductions in CO

emissions are to be achieved. This also implies that climate change mitigation should

primarily focus on a minor proportion of tourist trips.

6.5 Mitigation Policies and Measures

Climate change mitigation relates to technological, economic and socio-cultural changes that can lead
to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Tourism-related emissions are projected to continue to grow
rapidly under ‘business-as-usual’ conditions in contrast to the substantial emission reduction targets the
international community agreed was required in the latest round of UNFCCC negotiations (“Vienna
Climate Change Talks 2007”), where it was recognized that global emissions of GHG need to be reduced
to well below half of the levels in 2000 by mid-century. * Mitigation is thus of particular importance
in tourism; however, mitigation policies need to consider a number of dimensions, such as the need to
stabilize the global climate, the right of people to rest and recover and leisure **, and attaining the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals. As the emission reductions required for tourism to contribute

The ‘Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007’ represent the latest international negotiations on GHG emission reductions under
the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2007/
unisinf230.html.

The universal right to tourism must be regarded as the corollary of the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation
of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, guaranteed by Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and Article 7.d of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/
principles.html).

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

meaningfully to the broader emission reduction targets of the international community are substantial,
mitigation should ideally combine various strategies, such as voluntary, economic, and regulatory
instruments. These can be targeted at different stakeholder groups, including tourists, tour operators,
accommodation managers, airlines, manufacturers of cars and aircraft, as well as destination managers.
Instruments could also be applied with different emphasis in different countries, so as not to jeopardize
the development and poverty reduction opportunity offered by tourism in developing countries. It is
clear that for those actors being pro-active in addressing climate change, mitigation offers a range of
business opportunities. Given current societal trends, it seems that there will be new, permanent and
growing markets for environmentally oriented tourists and many opportunities to develop new low-
carbon tourism products.

Four major mitigation strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions from tourism can be
distinguished:

reducing energy use;

improving energy efﬁciency;

increasing the use of renewable energy, and;

sequestering carbon through sinks.

This report has systematically investigated the various options with regard to technological improvements,
environmental management, economic and policy measures, and behavioural change, arriving at a
number of conclusions:

1) Reducing energy use is the most essential aspect of mitigation, which can be achieved by altering

destination development and marketing (tour operators), destination choices (tourists) as well as
shifts in transport use from car and aircraft to rail and coach. Changing management practices
can be of importance for business tourism (videoconferencing). Tour operators play a key role
in this process, as they bundle products into packages that are advertised to and purchased by
tourists. Tour operators can also increase length of stay, which would very effectively reduce the
carbon footprint per tourist day and increase economic opportunities for destinations. It has to be
considered, however, that current tourism trends show an increase of short stays. Overall, tour
operators have a considerable inﬂuence on creating demand for less carbon intensive journeys by
creating attractive products that meet tourists’ needs and desires.

Regarding the most important sector, aviation, the industry favours emission trading over the
taxation of fuel or emissions.

Aviation is likely to soon enter the European Union Emission

Trading Scheme, which will increase the speed at which new technologies are introduced. An
even better alternative might be to create an emissions trading scheme entirely for aviation. More
efﬁcient technology would be introduced faster, while the proﬁtability of the aviation sector could
grow rapidly, as prices for tickets can be increased despite stable costs for operating aircraft.

2) Improving energy efﬁciency can be another mechanism to decrease energy demand. New

technology will signiﬁcantly reduce the emissions of aviation in a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario,
simply because it saves fuel-costs and improves aircraft performance. Reductions in emissions per
passenger km (pkm) are likely to be in the order of 32% between 2005 and 2035.

Additional

efforts to bring aviation technology to the theoretical limit (50% reduction of emission factors
between 2005 and 2035), would contribute to an overall reduction of total emissions from tourist
travel (excluding same-day, including all transport modes) by 14% with respect to the ‘business-
as-usual’ scenario. The same overall emissions reduction (14%) may be achieved with strong
reductions in the accommodations sub-sector. New technology within car transport has a potential
of reducing 7% of all tourist emissions. Note however, that the introduction of new air transport
technology takes decades as the market introduction of new technologies is slow, because ﬂeet
renewal stretches over several decades due to the long operational life of aircraft. The more rapid
introduction of new technologies is thus dependent on environmentally pro-active management
decisions that need to be aided by government policy, such as emission trading.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

3) This study found that virtually all sources of renewable energy are relevant for tourism, including

wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, biomass and energy regeneration from waste.
Several studies have explored the extent to which renewable energy sources can be used for
tourism, in particular in island destinations where energy supply based on fossil fuels is expensive
and at risk of supply interruptions. These studies come to the conclusion that the use of renewable
energy sources is generally economical and technically feasible.

100, 101

For example, in a vast

number of destinations in the tropics, investments in solar energy can pay off in as little as two
years. Biofuels are another option to contribute to more sustainable transport systems, even though
it should be noted that several problems remain unsolved, particularly relating to the sustainability
and efﬁciency of biofuel production and increasing competition over land, especially arable
land area. Also the maximum share of biofuels for use in (all) transport is estimated at less than
10%.

102

4) CO

can also be stored in biomass (e.g., through afforestation and avoided deforestation), in

aquifers or oceans, and in geological sinks (e.g., depleted gas ﬁelds). Within the tourism industry,
this is currently practiced through carbon compensation or carbon offsetting, which means that an
amount of greenhouse gas emissions equal to that caused by a certain activity (i.e., a ﬂight), will
be reduced elsewhere (i.e., through the planting of additional trees). There is still a lot of confusion
among tourists about what carbon offsetting is

103

and there is also evidence that particularly hyper-

mobile travellers, who account for the major share of the distances travelled and emissions caused,
are not ready to support voluntary carbon offsets.

104, 105

There is also a risk that carbon offsetting,

which has been initiated as a voluntary form of carbon reductions, is now becoming the means
used by the industry to ‘reduce’ emissions. This effectively means that producer responsibility is
turned into customer responsibility, which may be problematic if no action to reduce fuel use is
taken. As such, carbon offsetting can be seen as a controversial solution to climate protection,
because it potentially diverts from the real causes of the problems and therefore bypasses the
structural and technological changes that need to be made to achieve long-term greenhouse gas
reductions in the tourism sector. Nevertheless, carbon offsetting does have a role to play in future
mitigation efforts in tourism.

In the framework of this report, the expert team developed several scenarios considering different
mitigation options, in order to estimate how emission pathways in the global tourism sector might
develop in the future. In case of the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario (which takes into account the UNWTO’s
Tourism 2020 Vision forecast of an average 4% annual growth of international tourist arrivals up to
2020) it was estimated that CO

emissions in the global tourism sector may experience a growth of

161% by 2035 (see Figure 6.4).

Figure 6.4 Comparison of current emissions caused by tourist trips (overnight) and projections of

emissions for the year 2035 under the assumptions of a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario

Mton CO

3,500

3.000

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

Activities

Accommodation

Other transport

Car transport

Air transport

Year 2005 Year 2035

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Executive Summary

For example, the analysis estimated that emissions may be reduced through the following combination
of changed assumptions with respect to a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario for 2035 (see Figure 6.5):

If maximum assumed technological efﬁciencies were achieved for all transport modes,
accommodations and activities, this may result in 38% lower emissions.

Reducing energy use by a combination of transport modal shifts, shifts to shorter haul destinations
and increasing average length of stay may result in emission reductions by 44%.

Figure 6.5 Scenarios of CO

mitigation potential from global tourism in 2035

Considering the projected dynamic growth of tourism activities, there is a large task ahead if tourism
is to reduce its emissions to the same extent as other economic sectors. For an effective reduction of
emissions, the tourism sector needs to apply a combination of mitigation measures. Under the most
effective mitigation projection, using a combination of both above measures, the ‘business-as-usual’
scenario emissions in 2035 could be reduced by 68%

*, thus achieving a 16% reduction of emissions

with respect to the emissions in 2005.

6.6 The Way Forward to Adaptation and Mitigation in Tourism

Concern about climate change is increasing world-wide and the IPCC has made it clear that global
climate change is only just beginning. The impacts of climate change on the tourism sector will steadily
intensify, particularly under higher emission scenarios. Climate change would redistribute climate
resources for tourism geographically and seasonally and poses a risk to ecosystems worldwide. The
nature and intensity of climate change impacts will differ for tourism destinations around the world. The
most vulnerable regions are in developing countries, which generally also have less adaptive capacity

106

, and this will be a particular challenge for their tourist destinations and their host communities.

Climate change impacts on the tourism sector could inﬂuence other economic sectors, such as
agriculture and local business networks supplying tourism. Conversely, the tourism sector must also
be cognizant of the implications of climate change adaptation in other economic sectors, which could
have signiﬁcant impacts on tourism. As the ﬁnancial sector incorporates a company’s climate change
strategy, or lack of one, into its investment criteria, it will inﬂuence credit rating and insurance rates.

This ﬁgure is less than the sum of the impact of both projections given in the two bullet points, because the different assumed
changes interact with each other and sometimes reducing the mutual impact.

3,500

3.000

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

Mton CO

Baseline Business- Technical- Modal-Shift/ Combined
as-Usual Efﬁciency Length-of-Stay

2005* 2035*
2035 Mitigation scenarios

-38%

-44%

-68%

⎫

⎬

⎭

* Excludes same-day visitors

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Climate change mitigation requires the transformation of energy and transportation systems worldwide,
with implications for the cost of travel and tourist mobility. Climate change also has the potential to
have an adverse effect on the global economy and poses a security risk in some regions. Consequently,
climate change is anticipated to have profound implications that could fundamentally transform aspects
of the global tourism sector.

“Given that climate change is expected to pose an increasing threat to tourism operations in
many destinations […], WMO urges governments and the private sector to increasingly use
climate information generated through National Meteorological and Hydrological Services […],
and to take additional steps towards incorporating climate considerations in tourism policies,
development and management plans.”

Michel Jarraud, WMO Secretary-General (2007)

The unmistakable conclusion of this report is that the signiﬁcance of climate change to tourism is not
in some distant and remote future. Climate change is already inﬂuencing decision-making within the
tourism sector, including tourists, forward looking tourism businesses and investors, and international
tourism organizations. The next generation of tourism professionals will need to contend with virtually
all of the broad range of impacts outlined in this report.

Tourism can and must play a signiﬁcant role in addressing climate change as part of its broader
commitment to sustainable development and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Tourism as a non-negligible contributor to climate change has the responsibility to reverse the growth
trajectory of its GHG emissions over the next three decades to a more sustainable emissions pathway
consistent with the actions of the international community. The climate change mitigation potential is
thought to be relatively high in the tourism sector because efforts to lower energy consumption and
GHG emissions in the sector are still largely in their infancy, and thus far have been generally taken
without any vision of a coordinated sector-wide strategic response.

107

Also in this study it is shown that

several combinations of strong efforts, including decoupling of the growth of tourism from the growth
of tourism transport volumes and technological innovation, may signiﬁcantly reduce emissions in 2035,
without jeopardizing the growth of world tourism in number of trips or guest-nights.

Regardless of the success to reduce GHG emissions by the international community, there will
undoubtedly also be costs associated with climate change adaptation.

108

These costs cannot be borne

solely by those affected, especially as those most affected are likely to be those less able to take action
to cope with the changes (e.g., LDCs, SIDS and local tourism SMMEs). The capacity of the tourism
sector to adapt to climate change is thought to be relatively high due to its dynamic nature and therefore
there will be important opportunities for tourism to reduce the vulnerability of communities to climate
change.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for action by the international
community on climate change to be taken in close coordination with action on poverty alleviation and
the Millennium Development Goals. The IPCC further contends that there are signiﬁcant synergies that
can be exploited in bringing climate change to the development community and critical development
issues to the climate change community. There is an important opportunity for the tourism sector to
show leadership in the development of a coherent policy agenda that integrates both development and
climate change perspectives.

This is the time now for the tourism community to collectively formulate a strategy to address what must
be considered the greatest challenge to the sustainability of tourism in the 21st century.

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 7

The Earth’s climate has demonstrably changed compared to the pre-industrial era and is anticipated to
continue to change over the 21st century and beyond. On the basis of accumulating scientiﬁc evidence,
including observed increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow
and ice, rising global average sea levels, and a range of biological responses, the Intergovernment Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC)

109

declared that “[…] warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” The

global mean temperature has increased approximately 0.76° C between 1850–1899 and 2001–2005
and the IPCC concluded that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the
mid-20th century is very likely (> 90% probability) the result of human activities that are increasing
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

In addition, the IPCC

110

projected that the pace of climate change is very likely (> 90% probability) to

accelerate with continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates, with the best estimate
that globally averaged surface temperatures will rise by 1.8° C (low emission scenario) to 4.0° C (high
emission scenario) by the end of the 21st century. Even if atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse
gases (GHG) were stabilized at current levels, the Earth would continue to warm as a result of past GHG
emissions and the thermal inertia of the oceans. The biological response to this continued warming and
sea level rise would proceed for many centuries.

111, 112

The environmental and economic risks of the magnitude of climate change in the 21st century are
considerable and featured prominently in international policy debates.

113, 114, 115

The international

business community involved in the United Nations Global Compact

116

contend climate change

will affect business and society in fundamental and transformative ways. The Stern Review

117

on the

Economics of Climate Change concluded that unmitigated climate change could risk major economic
and social disruption later in this century and that tackling climate change was a pro-economic growth
strategy, with the beneﬁts of strong, early action considerably outweighing the costs of inaction. The
IPCC also recently concluded with very high conﬁdence

118

that climate change will impede the ability

of many nations to achieve sustainable development pathways, as articulated in the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

119

, over the next half-century.

Our lifestyles, economies, health and social well-being are all affected by climate change, and although
the consequences of climate change will vary on a regional basis, all nations and economic sectors
will have to contend with climate change in one way or another, addressing the challenges of both
adaptation and mitigation. Tourism is no exception, as climate change is already affecting decision-
making in the tourism sector and will be a pivotal issue affecting the medium and long-term future of
tourism development and management.

120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125

7.1 The New Realities of Tourism in an Era of Global Climate Change

Because of its close connections to the environment and climate itself, tourism is considered to be a
highly climate-sensitive economic sector like agriculture, insurance, energy, and transportation.

126

Indeed, climate change is not a remote future event for tourism, as the varied impacts of a changing
climate are becoming evident at destinations around the world. Tourism is affected by a very wide
range of environmental and socio-economic factors, and has been continuously adapting to challenges
and crisis situations, such as natural disasters, epidemics, terrorism, civil strife or economic downturns,
showing great resilience. Therefore, the capacity of the tourism sector to adapt to climate change is
thought to be relatively high due to its dynamic nature. Tourism can provide important opportunities

Introduction to the Technical Report

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

for tourism to reduce the overall vulnerability of communities to climate change through sustainable
development, particularly in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States
(SIDS). For the effective adaptation in their tourism sector, LDCs and SIDSs will require nonetheless
assistance to tackle the adverse effects of climate change, anticipated to be exacerbated due to poverty
and environmental needs.

At the same time, the tourism sector is a non-negligible contributor to climate change through greenhouse
gas emissions derived especially from the transport of tourists.

127, 128

The tourism sector must therefore

respond accordingly to signiﬁcantly reduce its GHG emissions consistent with the actions of the
international community. The climate change mitigation potential is thought to be relatively high in
the tourism sector because efforts to lower energy consumption and GHG emissions in the sector are
still largely in their infancy and thus far have been generally taken without any vision of a coordinated
sector-wide strategic response.

129

Tourism can play a signiﬁcant role in addressing climate change if the enormous innovativeness and
resources of this vital global economic sector are fully mobilized. Consistent with the position of the
United Nations

130

and the IPCC

131

, the tourism sector should not address the challenge climate

change in isolation, but do so in the context of the broader international sustainable development
agenda. The critical challenge before the global tourism sector is to develop a coherent policy strategy
that decouples the projected massive growth in tourism in the decades ahead from increased energy use
and GHG emissions, so as to allow tourism growth to simultaneously contribute to poverty alleviation
and play a major role in achieving the United Nations MGDs.

“Climate change as well as Poverty alleviation will remain central issues for the world community.
Tourism is an important element in both. Governments and the private sector must place increased
importance on these factors in tourism development strategies and in climate and poverty strategies.
They are interdependent and must be dealt with in a holistic fashion.”

Francesco Frangialli, UNWTO Secretary-General (2007)

7.2 Moving Forward on Understanding the New Realities

The response of the tourism community to the challenge of climate change has visibly increased over
the last ﬁve years. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), together with the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations
Convention to Combat Desertiﬁcation (UNCCD), the United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and the Government of Tunisia hosted the First International Conference on
Climate Change and Tourism in Djerba, Tunisia in 2003. The conference aimed at developing awareness
among government administrations, the tourism industry and other tourism stakeholders about the
salience of climate change impacts occurring or anticipated to affect tourism destinations and the need
to carefully consider the consequences of climate change mitigation policies on tourism as well as the
obligation of the tourism sector to be a part of the solution by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The
recognition within the Djerba Declaration of the complex inter-linkages between the tourism sector and
climate change and the need to take adaptation and mitigation measures, established a comprehensive
framework for future research and policy making.

132

The Davos Conference and Declaration built on

the consensus reached in Djerba and took further the policy debate focusing on concrete responses that
the different stakeholder groups can take.

Subsequent workshops sponsored by the European Science Foundation (Milan 2003), the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (Warsaw 2003), the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment
(Genoa 2004), and the Experts on Climate Change and Tourism group (eCLAT) (Netherlands 2006, Paris
2007) and the Marrakech Task Force on Sustainable Tourism further contributed to the development of
collaborative research and practical case studies by a network of international tourism stakeholders and
scientists. For example, UNWTO initiated pilot adaptation projects in Fiji and Maldives through the
Global Environmental Facility (GEF) in collaboration with UNEP and the United Nations Development

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Introduction to the Technical Report

Programme (UNDP). Climate change and tourism have been also prominent at the UN Conference on
Small Islands, held in Mauritius in 2005, where UNWTO held a special event on tourism. In 2005, at
the Fourteenth Session of the Commission for Climatology,

133

the World Meteorological Organization

(WMO) established an Expert Team on Climate and Tourism with the broad mandate, to be carried out
in collaboration with the UNWTO, to advance the application of weather and climate information in
the tourism sector and understanding of the implications of climate change.

Individual tourism industry associations and businesses have also shown leadership on climate change.
Recognizing the risk climate change poses to the future of the ski industry, the National Ski Areas
Association in the USA initiated the ‘Keep Winter Cool’ Campaign in 2003, in order to raise public
awareness of the potential effects of global climate change, reduce GHG emissions of the ski industry,
and encourage others to take action to reduce their GHG emissions (including lobbying government
ofﬁcials to pass climate change legislation). This campaign has now been adapted for use in Canada and
Australia. Aspen Ski Company (USA) was one of the ﬁrst in the tourism sector to develop a corporate
policy on climate change and adopt legally binding greenhouse gas emission targets in 2001. For a
number of years now, the New Zealand Tourism Industry Association has promoted awareness of the
issue of climate change by offsetting the emissions from the trips made by participants to its annual
conference.

The scientiﬁc community has also responded, with multi-disciplinary contributions from tourism
studies, economics, geography and environmental management, development studies, sociology and
psychology doubling the number of scientiﬁc publications that examine the interactions of tourism
and climate change between 1996–2000 and 2001–2005.

134

This rapidly developing area of tourism

research contributed to a signiﬁcant advancement of the place of tourism in the IPCC 4th Assessment
Report (AR4) relative to previous assessments.

135, 136

Tourism was discussed in two volumes of the

AR4, that of Working Group 2 (WG2), which focuses on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
of natural and human systems to climatic change, and, much more brieﬂy, in the volume of Working
Group 3 (WG3), which focuses on the GHG emissions from different economic sectors and groups of
countries and possible mitigation strategies.

Box 1 Role and structure of the IPCC

The scientiﬁc community involved in understanding past-present-future climate change and its
implications for natural and human systems is increasingly large. The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a decisive networking and synthesis role and, though in an
informal manner, in orienting future research. The IPCC was established in 1988 by the United
Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization “[…] to assess on a
comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientiﬁc, technical and socio-economic
information relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its
observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation”. As part of its mandate,
the IPCC periodically produces assessment reports which are based in the latest peer-reviewed
scientiﬁc literature, undergo extensive multiple rounds of scientiﬁc and government review, and
involve thousands of scientists and government ofﬁcials world-wide. Because the conclusions are
validated both by the scientiﬁc community and by governments they are a highly authoritative,
key reference for decision-makers in the international community. The IPCC is comprised of three
Working Groups that focus on different aspects of the climate change issue, each of them with its
special relevance to tourism:

Working Group 1 – assesses the mechanisms of the climate system and the magnitude of
climate change;

Working Group 2 – assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to
climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for
adapting to it; and,

Working Group 3 – assesses options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise
mitigating climate change.

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Within the WG2 report, there is considerable diversity in how prominently tourism is in the regional
chapters and key geographic gaps on impacts exist. Whereas there are substantial sections dedicated to
tourism in the chapters on Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America, there is hardly any consideration
of tourism in the chapters on Asia and Latin America. Even among the regions with dedicated sections
on tourism, information availability varies substantially. For example, while the impacts of climate
change on tourism are anticipated to be very important in Africa, there are almost no tourism speciﬁc
studies available on this continent. Given the regional distribution of global tourism receipts and
relative importance of tourism to the economies to some nations in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia,
these regional gaps need to be redressed in the future. The “Industry, Settlement and Society” chapter
of the report and the “Small Islands” chapter also devoted substantial discussion to tourism. Tourism
is however all but absent in some of the other chapters by WG2, where some discussion could be
expected, for example the chapters on “Human Health”, “Freshwater Resources”, and the critical inter-
linkages between “Climate Change and Sustainability”.

Tourism received minimal attention by WG3, with tourism only being mentioned where the potential
impacts of adaptation measures in the tourism sector on emissions (e.g., higher energy consumption
resulting from increased use of air-conditioning) and the potential impacts of mitigation policies are
discussed. The prominence of tourism in overall transport emissions might have been expected to be
acknowledged more explicitly.

Tourism is an activity whose effects are distributed in many economic sectors, such as transport,
accommodation and agriculture. Tourism is also characterised by both the signiﬁcance of its contribution
to GHG emissions and its substantial overall economic importance. An assessment of emissions from
tourism would thus help to develop mitigation strategies in particular within the critical ﬁeld of air
transport (see Chapter 11). With minimal discussion of GHG emissions and mitigation within the
tourism sector and very limited discussion of the impacts of climate change on tourism or possible
adaptation strategies within the AR4, there is currently no peer-reviewed, synthetic and worldwide
review of the relationships between climate change and tourism. This report is intended to help close
this information gap.

7.3 Purpose and Scope

This report presents a synthesis of the demonstrable progress made since the Djerba Conference in 2003
on the complex interactions between tourism and global climate change. It summarizes the state of
knowledge about current and future likely impacts of climate change on tourism in diverse destinations
around the world and possible impacts on tourist demand, current levels and trends in GHG emissions
from the tourism sector, and an overview of policy and management responses adopted by the key
stakeholder groups (international organizations, public administrations, the tourism industry) with
respect to adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. The report focused primarily on new science
and policy developments that have occurred since the Djerba conference in 2003. Extensive references
are imbedded throughout the report to assist those seeking to acquire further information about particular
case studies or speciﬁc research topics. The text is also illustrated with boxes that describe case studies
of impacts or examples of adaptation and mitigation practice from around the world.

The technical report is based on an extensive review of scientiﬁc literature and policy and management
responses to climate change and is intended to provide extensive background information for high-level
technical debate and the search of possible courses of action at the Second International Conference
on Climate Change and Tourism (Davos, Switzerland, 1–3 October 2007). The outcomes of the Second
International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism and the Ministerial Summit in London
(13 November 2007), were transmitted by UNWTO to the UN Climate Change Summit in Bali, Indonesia
(3-14 December 2007).

UNWTO, 9 July 2008

Chapter 8

Over the past decade quite signiﬁcant progress has been made in the science of global climate change
and its potential implications for natural and human systems. As indicated in Chapter 7, substantial
progress on the complex interactions between climate change and tourism has occurred in the past
ﬁve years. This Chapter ﬁrst situates the recent concern about the consequences of climate change for
tourism within the context of existing knowledge about the relationship between tourism and climate
and weather, which has developed over the last 30 years. The importance of local-regional scale climate
analysis for tourism is emphasized. The Chapter also provides a brief overview of recent advances in
our understanding of global climate change and an overview of the state of climate change science,
as outlined in the IPCC AR4, is then provided both at a global scale and at a regional level in order to
inform discussion of possible impacts on tourism in subsequent chapters.

8.1 Distinguishing Weather, Climate, and Climate Change

8.1.1 Deﬁnitions

Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a moment in time, as determined by the simultaneous
occurrence of several meteorological variables (temperature, wind, cloud cover, precipitation) at a
speciﬁc geographical location. Weather is an element of the environment that nobody can escape. That
weather is good or bad is subjective, and depends on personal preferences, activities, and personal
health. Weather is what tourists actually experience when at a destination, affecting their activities and
holiday satisfaction. Weather also affects key aspects of tourism operations, including infrastructure,
activity programming, and operating costs.

Climate is usually deﬁned as ‘average weather’ for a speciﬁc location. More rigorously, climate is the
state of the climate system, including a statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of
meteorological variables over a speciﬁed period of time. Averages of climate elements calculated over
a uniform and relatively long period covering at least three consecutive ten-year periods are usually
referred to as Climate Normals

* under the Technical Regulations.

137

‘Climatological Standard Normals’

are averages of climate data computed for the speciﬁc 30-year periods of 1931–1960, 1961–1990,
and (next) 1991–2020. Climate normals are used as a ‘benchmark’ against which recent or current
observations can be compared, including providing a basis for many anomaly-based climate data sets
such as the time series of global mean temperature anomalies. Climate normals are also used, implicitly
or explicitly, to serve as a prediction of the conditions most likely to be experienced in a given location.
Climate is what a tourist would anticipate experiencing at a speciﬁc destination and time, whereas they
might be confronted with weather that may not match these climatic expectations. Climate is a key
factor considered consciously or implicitly during travel planning and it is an important attribute taken
into account in locational planning, infrastructure development and destination marketing.

Climate change refers to a statistically signiﬁcant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in
its spatial (micro-local) or temporal (seasonal) variability, persisting for an extended period (typically
decades or longer).

138

Tourism depends not only on average, but also on detailed characteristics of

Note that it is widely recognized that the mean is an incomplete descriptor of climate and that standard deviations, extreme
values, etc, are also essential.

Advances in Climate Change Science and

Implications for the Tourism Sector

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

climate: the duration of showers or the number of hours with clouds is probably more important for
this activity than the absolute amount of rain. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes
or external forcings (e.g., ﬂuctuation in solar energy), or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the
composition of the atmosphere or in land use.

8.1.2 Relationships between Climate, Weather and Tourism

The relationship between tourism and climate has been studied for a long time.

139

In the 1970s,

applied climatologists examined the climatic thresholds that deﬁned the season length for a wide
range of tourism activities.

140, 141, 142, 143

In the 1980s, biometeorologists and others studied how

climatic variables affected the physical comfort of tourists and developed rating systems to evaluate and
compare the climates of tourism destinations.

144, 145, 146

More recent work has focused on validating

climate rating systems for tourism in the marketplace.

147, 148, 149

The suitability of a given climate (and

weather) varies for different types of tourism, as does the satisfaction of an individual tourist depending
on country of origin, age or other factors.

150, 151

Some types of tourism require very speciﬁc climate

conditions, for example beach tourism, winter sports, or health-wellness tourism. Climatic conditions
and their suitability to tourism can differ at a micro scale from one side of the mountain to the other,
within a range of a few kilometres according to altitude or even at a smaller scale under the inﬂuence
of human developments (e.g., urban heat island) or tourism infrastructure (e.g., tourist resorts – both
new [La grande Motte in Languedoc, France] and old [on the French Riviera] – have been designed to
reduce wind speeds to enhance tourist comfort). More recent work has focused on the role of weather
and climate in travel motivation, destination choice, and holiday satisfaction for tourists as well as the
range of uses of weather and climate information by tourism operators and other tourism stakeholders
(investors, insurers, regulators).

152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159

8.1.3 The Importance of Weather Forecasts and Climate Prediction for the

Tourism Sector

“A major limiting factor to the predictability of weather beyond several days is a fundamental
dynamical property of the atmosphere. In the 1960s, meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered that
very slight differences in initial conditions can produce very different forecast results.”

Le Treut et al. (2007)

Weather, in many regions of the world, can be forecast now for up to a week with good reliability
and it is expected that similarly reliable forecasts will be extended to upwards of ten days over the
next 10–15 years. Weather forecasts are improving at a local scale, though some extreme phenomena
such as tornadoes cannot (yet) be predicted with sufﬁcient lead time for effective response to the risk.
Improvements to weather forecasts and the development of early warning systems are of particular
interest to the tourism sector. Improvements in weather forecasting beneﬁt tourists in their short term
decision-making related to travel planning (i.e., departure time-date and destination choice) and
activities. Early warning systems also reduce the safety risks associated with extreme events, such as
storms, cyclones, or avalanches.

160, 161

The improved accuracy of weather forecasts is also important

for tourism operators. Improved forecasts beneﬁt operational decisions, such as irrigation, snow-
making, activities programming, maintenance and staff scheduling, and route planning (cruise ships
and airlines). Improved forecasting is also desirable because inaccurate forecasts can be detrimental to
the tourist experience and tourism demand, for example when people go on ski, beach or camping trip
and do not ﬁnd the expected good weather, or do not go because of the forecast of poor weather that
does not actually materialize.

Seasonal climate prediction covers periods from one month, to several years, but typically is for three
month periods. The availability of seasonal predictions is expanding, following upon recent advances in

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Advances in Climate Change Science and Implications for the Tourism Sector

the understanding and modelling of climatic processes. Through the analysis of the global or regional
phenomena affecting regional and local climate and weather (e.g., El Niño, North Atlantic and Arctic
oscillations), meteorologists combine global forecasting methods and statistics, to determine probabilities
for a given season (e.g., probability the next summer will be warmer or dryer than average – (see Figure
8.1) – or the number of intense tropical storms expected in a region). Some Meteorological services,
such as US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issue seasonal forecasts more
than one year in advance, for parameters such as temperature and precipitation. The use of seasonal
prediction has been limited in the tourism sector thus far,

162

although there are a number of potential

uses that are anticipated to increase as seasonal prediction improve further: fuel supply procurement,
marketing, setting insurance premiums, inventory management, or cruise line destination planning.

One of the reasons for the slow integration of weather and climate information into decision making is
the uncertainty associated with the forecasts or predictions. Uncertainty is an unavoidable fact in any
climate projection, prediction, or assessment, but uncertainty is very different from no information.
Weather and climate experts strive to help users understand inherent uncertainty, and to learn how to
handle it, and thereby to be fully aware of the risks and beneﬁts when making decisions regarding a
climate-sensitive activity. In a “Climate Risk Management” approach, decisions are never based on a
single scenario. Rather, risks and beneﬁts are assessed over the range of possible scenarios, in such a
way that catastrophic loss is minimized, and over time, the best outcomes are realized. The challenge is
for the meteorological and tourism communities to work together to ﬁnd the decisions and policies that
are amenable to such an approach, and to seize upon them.

In recent years, new partnerships between meteorological institutions and tourism stakeholders have
developed.

163

This cooperation has taken multiple forms, from new forecasts for tourism destinations,

improved media training and cooperation to deliver forecasts related to tourism, to speciﬁc contracts
between meteorological services and destinations, tour operators and other stakeholders. UNWTO
and WMO have begun new collaborations to improve the availability and use of weather and climate
information in the tourism sector. WMO has established a new Expert Team on Climate and Tourism

164

with part of its mandate to work with National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and tourism
professionals to develop tailored climate products for application to tourism and develop new information
on risk assessment to build on the WMO-UNWTO Handbook on Natural Disaster Reduction in Tourism
Areas.

Figure 8.1 A global seasonal weather forecast for summer 2007 temperatures, issued in March 2007

Source : UK Met Office (2007)

cold

cold or average

average

warm or average

warm

more likely

180W 90W 0 90E 180E

90N

45N

45S

90s

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

8.2 Advances in the Understanding of Global Climate Change

The methods used to explore future climate shows that the uncertainties are linked to research tools
currently available and some others to the evolution of human activities over the span of several decades
(e.g., population and economic growth, evolution and implementation of new technology). Climate
being a statistic of daily weather over a long period implies that it is necessary to work with statistics,
trends, indicators of variability, and conﬁdence levels, all of which make it difﬁcult to deliver clear
messages to diverse audiences.

Two types of approaches can be used to describe the nature of potential future climate change.

Scenarios

Scenarios are the main method used to explore the future of climate. In order to develop future climate
scenarios, the future of GHG emissions from human activities need to be considered. Two categories of
GHG emission scenarios must be distinguished; those that do not consider policies to mitigate emissions
(e.g., IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES)) and those that do (i.e., stabilisation scenarios).
The IPCC SRES scenarios are classiﬁed into four families according to their global-regional and the
development-environmental orientations:

The A1 storyline and scenario family describes a future world with very rapid economic growth,
low population growth, and the rapid introduction of new and more efﬁcient technologies.

The A2 storyline and scenario family describes a very heterogeneous world. The underlying theme
is self-reliance and preservation of local identities.

The B1 storyline and scenario family describes a convergent world with the same low population
growth as in the A1 storyline, but with rapid changes in economic structures toward a service and
information economy, with reductions in material intensity, and the introduction of clean and
resource-efﬁcient technologies.

The B2 storyline and scenario family describes a world in which the emphasis is on local solutions
to economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

The different GHG emission trajectories over the 21st century from these SRES scenarios are outlined
in Figure 8.2.

When the SRES emission scenarios are run through several extensively validated Global Climate
Models (GCMs), the estimated range of global warming is 1.8° C to 4.0° C by the end of the 21st
century.

165

This range is due to the uncertainty about future GHG emissions linked to unpredictable

socio-economic conditions and to the different responses of GCMs to the same amount of emissions.
Thus, these scenarios deliver results that policy makers sometimes ﬁnd difﬁcult to use. Often, policy
makers want to know what they need to do in order to keep climate change within boundaries that they
perceive as ‘acceptable’. This is a question to which stabilisation scenarios are more suited to provide
an answer.

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Advances in Climate Change Science and Implications for the Tourism Sector

Figure 8.2 Scenarios for global temperature in the 21st century

Source: IPCC 2007a

Stabilization scenarios also explore a wide range of future GHG conditions, typically ranging from
atmospheric CO

concentrations of 450 ppm to 1000 ppm (current levels are estimated at 380 ppm).

Some stabilization scenarios can be considered proxies for ‘policy scenarios’ because they are very near
to the objectives of some governments in developed countries: they imply that emissions per unit of
GDP would need to be just one quarter of current level by 2050.

166

Such stabilisation scenarios require

very ambitious GHG reductions policies to control energy demand, produce carbon neutral energy,
capture and store CO

from energy production.

Analogues

Another approach to describe what future climate conditions might be like is to refer to similar conditions
when they occurred in the past. This approach facilitates more effective communication with some
audiences. For example, one can point out that if global average temperatures were approximately 5° C
cooler, then climate conditions would resemble those during the last ice age and that the changes we
may witness by the end of the 21st century are of a similar magnitude but in the opposite direction.
Another example is the European heat wave of 2003, which is an analogue for average summer
temperature conditions the region might face in the later decades of this century. Under certain climate
change scenarios the annual mean temperature of Paris would be near to that of Toledo now (Figure
8.3).

167

The use of climate analogues assumes that major climate processes remain stable, whereas

unprecedented CO

concentrations associated with high GHG emission scenarios may trigger new and

uncertain climate processes.

168

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Figure 8.3 Spatial climate analogue for European cities for 2100

(a)

(a) Map of Europe and Mediterranean basin, with a few cities at the location of their future climate analogue, i.e. a location that

presently enjoys a climate close to their future climate. The model used is Hadley Centre HafRM3H model.

Source: Hallegatte, S. et al (2005)

The use of climate analogues is a promising avenue for exploring the potential impacts of climate
change on tourism. Anomalous weather events can be studied to learn the behavioural response
of tourists, how successful climate adaptations by tourism operators were, the extent of economic
impacts, the recovery period for visitation, and identify additional adaptation measures that might be
required by the tourism industry and government. This approach offers some advantages over other
research approaches because it focuses on the observed responses of the entire tourism marketplace to
real climatic conditions, and captures the integrated effects of simultaneous supply and demand-side
adaptations. Climate analogues have been successfully applied in other ﬁelds of research, but remain
under utilized in the tourism sector.

8.2.1 Regional and Local Climate Change: Why Downscaling is Critical for

Tourism

Tourism, as an economic sector, is greatly inﬂuenced by the local environment, its climate and its
climate-inﬂuenced natural resources. Moreover, the effect of climate on tourism is strongly inﬂuenced
by the perceptions of tourists. Instead of the average temperature, what is important is the ‘thermal
comfort’ of clients, and rather than average precipitation, the frequency and length of rain showers
count for the quality of a tourism experience. Therefore, research into the impacts of climate change on
tourism depends on the performance of regional and local climate scenarios, as well as on the sort of
parameters that can be modelled at these scales.

Mean annual temperature

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Box 2 Using a climate change analogue approach to examine climate change vulnerability

of the New England (USA) ski industry

169

The record warm winter of 2001–2002 (+8° C warmer than climatically normal temperatures
for the 1961–1990 baseline period) is representative of projected future average winter climate
conditions in the New England region under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario for the
2040–2069 period. This winter was used as a climate change analogue to examine how a wide
range of ski area performance indicators (ski season length, hours of snow-making operation,
total skier visits, visitation by time of year, average season passes sold, and operating proﬁt as a
percentage of total gross revenue) were affected by anomalously warm conditions. Comparison of
ski area performance indicators for the 2001–2002 analogue year with the climatically normal (for
1961–1990 period) years of 2000–2001 and 2004–2005, revealed substantial differences. The ski
season length was 11% shorter in the analogue year. Snow-making hours increased by 12% in the
analogue season and the amount of power utilized for the purpose of creating snow was almost
35% higher than during average ski seasons. Visitation during the climate change analogue season
was 12% lower versus the climatically normal winters. The combination of increased snow-making
costs, decreased season length, and lower visitation rates, caused ﬁnancial strain that reduced
operating proﬁts for the 2001–2002 season by 19% versus climatically average seasons. Analysis
of impact on different sized ski resorts (categorized by lift capacity) further revealed that smaller
ski areas experienced larger impacts.

Tourism decision makers need clear and reliable conclusions of impact assessments. To answer this need,
tourism research must adequately portray the differences between climate change scenarios produced by
different climate models and downscale GCM scenarios to regional and local levels in order to describe
the variability of climate, to present the probability of extreme events, and, above all, to ‘translate’
model outputs into indicators that are important for the tourism sector (e.g., number of rainy days,
length of showers, thermal comfort, duration of the snow season, forest ﬁre frequency and intensity).
One of the key recommendations of the “Climate and Tourism on the Colorado Plateau Workshop”

170

that involved representatives from research, industry, and environmental organizations, was for better
communication and characterization of certainties and uncertainties in climate variability and change
projections to the tourism industry and for the development of indicators catered toward local tourism
decision-making. Additional workshops like this one would be highly valuable in identifying regionally
speciﬁc weather and climate information needs of the tourism industry.

Projecting future climate change at local scales is difﬁcult because the resolution of GCMs is too coarse
to take into account local features of climate. Climate modellers and meteorologists utilize several
techniques to produce regional-local scale climate scenarios, including Regional Climate Models
(RCMs), statistical weather generators and weather forecast simulations. RCMs are higher resolution
climate models that are usually better able to reproduce regional climate processes than GCMs. The
application of RCM scenarios in climate change impact assessments has been restricted because of the
limited range of GHG emission scenarios available. Weather generators are inexpensive computational
tools that replicate the statistical attributes of a local climate and can be used to produce site-speciﬁc,
multiple-year climate change scenarios at the daily timescale.

171

Tourism researchers have used these

techniques in climate change impact assessments. In order to obtain even more precise local results,
an additional technique can be to introduce some human experience in the downscaling process.
Local weather analysts, who are experts on local speciﬁcities, can be involved to take into account
localized micro-climate effects (e.g., coastal effects of marine winds on a tourist location). The IPCC has
provided guidelines for best practice in downscaling

172

, nonetheless, downscaling generally increases

the uncertainties and margins of error associated with climate change scenarios.

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Box 3 Recommendations for impact assessment studies in tourism

Climate change impact assessments in many socio-economic sectors, including tourism, have
often employed a very limited range of climate change scenarios to explore the potential impacts
of climate change; sometimes using only one GCM or a single GHG emission scenario (e.g.,
IPCC A2 scenario or another SRES scenario). Such an approach does not adequately represent
the uncertainty in future climate conditions and produces an unrealistically narrow assessment
of the potential impacts and possible adaptation requirements. Climate change assessments,
in tourism, as in other sectors

, should better take into account of the uncertainty in climate

change scenarios. In any study, the minimum requirement is to be transparent about climate
change scenarios utilized, including the GHG emission scenarios and the climate models used.
As recommended by the IPCC, impact assessments should incorporate multi-GCM/RCM and
multi-emission scenario combinations to represent the full range of possible future climates for a
study area. Since developing several scenarios is costly and time-consuming, alternate strategies
are possible, such as presenting the whole range of scenarios for a limited number of critical
parameters and selecting a representative set of climatic scenarios for use in the impact analysis
(e.g., the warmest and driest scenario as well as the least warm and wettest scenario). This requires
a general improvement in the availability of user friendly climate change scenario data, which
has been an important barrier in some regions. To overcome this barrier, some countries, such as
Canada, have made all currently available GCM data available in a user friendly format for any
location. For example, see the Climate Change Scenario Network (http://www.ccsn.ca/).

8.3 Latest Results on Past and Future Climate Change

8.3.1 The Changing Climate

The IPCC AR4

173, 174

summarized the growing evidence from multiple natural systems that indicate

that the global climate is changing. Eleven of the last twelve years rank among the 12 warmest years
in the record of global surface temperature since 1850 (Figure 8.4). The warming trend over the last 50
years (0.13° C per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years (Figure 8.4). The total temperature
increase from 1850–1899 and 2001–2005 is 0.76° C. Widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps
and warming ocean surface temperature have contributed to sea level rise. Global average sea level
rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003, and at approximately 3.1 mm per year
from 1993 to 2003. The biological response of ecosystems and individual species has been recorded
on every continent.

175

It is important to note that impact assessment studies in the tourism sector are not especially weaker than those conducted
in other sectors.

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Figure 8.4 Recorded changes in global average temperature since 1850

Source: IPCC 2007a

8.3.2 Human Inﬂuence on Climate Change

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely
(>90% probability) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

176

Discernible human inﬂuences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming,

continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns.

177

Box 4 The language of uncertainty in the IPCC AR4

178

Assessments of climate change science by the IPCC have always recognized the importance of
communicating uncertainties to policy makers. In the AR4 Working Group II on impacts and
adaptation, the following terms were used to indicate ‘degree of conﬁdence in being correct’
and ‘likelihood of occurrence’, as based on the collective judgment of the authors using the
observational evidence, modeling results, and theory that they have examined.

Terminology for degree of conﬁdence in being correct

Very high conﬁdence

At least 9 out of 10 chance

High conﬁdence

About 8 out of 10 chance

Medium conﬁdence About 5 out of 10 chance

Low conﬁdence

About 2 out of 10 chance

Very low conﬁdence

Less than 1 out of 10 chance

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Terminology for likelihood of the occurrence/outcome

Virtually certain

> 99% probability of occurrence

Very likely

> 90% probability

Likely

> 66% probability

About as likely as not

33 to 66% probability

Unlikely

< 33% probability

Very unlikely

< 10% probability

Exceptionally unlikely

< 1% probability

In AR4 WG 3 on emissions and mitigation, another language was used, combining the level of
expert agreement and the amount of evidence (scientiﬁc publications) on a speciﬁc question.
These two factors were combined into a qualitative matrix of uncertainty shown in Figure 8.5
Since human choices were more involved in a mitigation perspective, the concepts of ‘likelihood’
and ‘conﬁdence’ used in WG 2 appeared less suitable to Working Group 3.

Figure 8.5 Qualitative definitions of uncertainty in Working Group 3

L
e

v
el of ag

r
eement

(on a par

ticular

finding)

High agreement,
limited evidence

High agreement,
medium evidence

High agreement,
much evidence

Medium agreement,
limited evidence

Medium agreement,
medium evidence

Medium agreement,
much evidence

Low agreement,
limited evidence

Low agreement,
medium evidence

Low agreement,
much evidence

Amount of evidence (number and quality of independent sources)

Source: IPCC 2007c

8.3.3 Global Climate Change in the 21st Century

The recently completed AR4

179

highlighted the following key global scale climate changes that are

projected to take place over the 21st century):

“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2° C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios.”

180

Figure 8.2 shows that based on the SRES emission scenarios the best estimate is that global average
temperatures would increase 1.8° C to 4° C by 2100. There are two notable caveats to this estimate.
First, the recent growth of emissions

181

is on a trajectory that exceeds the most pessimistic of SRES

scenarios. Second, there is a risk of feedbacks in the climate system that may increase warming.

182

Models used to date do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedback nor do they
include the full effects of changes in ice sheet ﬂow.

183

There is no historical analogue to indicate what might happen with such a rapid warming over
current temperatures.

The temperature increase in the 21st century represents only 50 to 90% of the eventual warming
that could result from SRES emission scenarios. The level at which temperatures eventually stabilize
depends on how fast GHG emissions will be reduced.

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“Warming is expected to be greatest over land and at most high northern latitudes, and least over
the Southern Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean”

184

Observed decreases in snow cover are projected to continue.

“It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to
become more frequent.”

185

“It is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense,
with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of
tropical sea surface temperatures. There is less conﬁdence in projections of a global decrease in
numbers of tropical cyclones.”

186

“Extratropical storm tracks are projected to move poleward, with consequent changes in wind,
precipitation and temperature patterns, continuing the broad pattern of observed trends over the
last half-century.”

187

“There is now higher conﬁdence in projected patterns of warming and other regional-scale features,
including changes in wind patterns, precipitation and some aspects of extremes and of ice.”

188

8.3.4 Regional Climate Change in the 21st Century

Future changes in temperatures and other important features of climate will manifest themselves
differently across the regions of the world. Very concise summaries of the current understanding of how
regional climates may change have been developed by the IPCC

189

and are provided below.

Africa

Warming is very likely to be more signiﬁcant than the global annual mean warming throughout the
continent and in all seasons, with drier subtropical regions warming more than the moister tropics.
Annual rainfall is likely to decrease in much of Mediterranean Africa and the northern Sahara, with a
greater likelihood of decreasing rainfall as the Mediterranean coast is approached. Rainfall in southern
Africa is likely to decrease in much of the winter rainfall region and western margins (Figure 8.6). There
is likely to be an increase in annual mean rainfall in East Africa. It is unclear how rainfall in the Sahel,
the Guinean Coast and the southern Sahara will evolve.

Mediterranean and Europe

Annual mean temperatures in Europe are likely to increase more than the global mean. Seasonally,
the largest warming is likely to be in northern Europe in winter and in the Mediterranean area in
summer. Minimum winter temperatures are likely to increase more than the average in northern Europe.
Maximum summer temperatures are likely to increase more than the average in southern and central
Europe. Annual precipitation is very likely to increase in most of northern Europe and decrease in most
of the Mediterranean area. In central Europe, precipitation is likely to increase in winter but decrease
in summer. Extremes of daily precipitation are very likely to increase in northern Europe. The annual
number of precipitation days is very likely to decrease in the Mediterranean area. Risk of summer
drought is likely to increase in central Europe and in the Mediterranean area. The duration of the snow
season is very likely to shorten, and snow depth is likely to decrease in most of Europe (Figure 8.6).

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Asia

Warming is likely to be well above the global mean in central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and northern
Asia, above the global mean in eastern Asia and South Asia, and similar to the global mean in Southeast
Asia. Precipitation in boreal winter is very likely to increase in northern Asia and the Tibetan Plateau,
and likely to increase in eastern Asia and the southern parts of Southeast Asia. Precipitation in summer
is likely to increase in northern Asia, East Asia, South Asia and most of Southeast Asia, but is likely to
decrease in central Asia. It is very likely that heat waves/hot spells in summer will be of longer duration,
more intense and more frequent in East Asia. Fewer very cold days are very likely in East Asia and South
Asia. There is very likely to be an increase in the frequency of intense precipitation events in parts of
South Asia, and in East Asia (Figure 8.6). Extreme rainfall and winds associated with tropical cyclones
are likely to increase in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.

North America

The annual mean warming is likely to exceed the global mean warming in most areas. Seasonally,
warming is likely to be largest in winter in northern regions and in summer in the southwest. Minimum
winter temperatures are likely to increase more than the average in northern North America. Maximum
summer temperatures are likely to increase more than the average in the southwest. Annual mean
precipitation is very likely to increase in Canada and the northeast USA, and likely to decrease in the
southwest. In southern Canada, precipitation is likely to increase in winter and spring but decrease in
summer (Figure 8.6). Snow season length and snow depth are very likely to decrease in most of North
America except in the northernmost part of Canada where maximum snow depth is likely to increase
(Figure 8.6).

Central and South America

The annual mean warming is likely to be similar to the global mean warming in southern South America
but larger than the global mean warming in the rest of the area. Annual precipitation is likely to decrease
in most of Central America and in the southern Andes, although changes in atmospheric circulation
may induce large local variability in precipitation response in mountainous areas. Winter precipitation
in Tierra del Fuego and summer precipitation in south-eastern South America is likely to increase
(Figure 8.6). It is uncertain how annual and seasonal mean rainfall will change over northern South
America, including the Amazon forest. However, there is qualitative consistency among the simulations
in some areas (rainfall increasing in Ecuador and northern Peru, and decreasing at the northern tip of
the continent and in southern northeast Brazil).

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Advances in Climate Change Science and Implications for the Tourism Sector

Figure 8.6 IPCC representation of anticipated regional climate change

Source: IPCC 2007a

Australia and New Zealand

Warming is likely to be larger than that of the surrounding oceans, but comparable to the global mean.
The warming is less in the south, especially in winter, with the warming in the South Island of New
Zealand likely to remain less than the global mean. Precipitation is likely to decrease in southern
Australia in winter and spring. Precipitation is very likely to decrease in south-western Australia in
winter. Precipitation is likely to increase in the west of the South Island of New Zealand. Changes in
rainfall in northern and central Australia are uncertain. Increased mean wind speed is likely across
the South Island of New Zealand, particularly in winter. Increased frequency of extreme high daily
temperatures in Australia and New Zealand, and a decrease in the frequency of cold extremes is very
likely. Extremes of daily precipitation are very likely to increase, except possibly in areas of signiﬁcant

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

decrease in mean rainfall (southern Australia in winter and spring). Increased risk of drought in southern
areas of Australia is likely (Figure 8.6).

Polar regions

The Arctic is very likely to warm during this century more than the global mean. Warming is projected
to be largest in winter and smallest in summer. Annual arctic precipitation is very likely to increase. It
is very likely that the relative precipitation increase will be largest in winter and smallest in summer.
Arctic sea ice is very likely to decrease in its extent and thickness. It is uncertain how the Arctic Ocean
circulation will change. The Antarctic is likely to warm and the precipitation is likely to increase over
the continent. It is uncertain to what extent the frequency of extreme temperature and precipitation
events will change in the polar regions (Figure 8.6).

Small islands

Sea levels are likely to rise on average during the century around the small islands of the Caribbean
Sea, Indian Ocean and northern and southern Paciﬁc Oceans. The rise will likely not be geographically
uniform but large deviations among models make regional estimates across the Caribbean, Indian and
Paciﬁc Oceans uncertain. All Caribbean, Indian Ocean and North and South Paciﬁc islands are very
likely to warm during this century. The warming is likely to be somewhat smaller than the global annual
mean. Summer rainfall in the Caribbean is likely to decrease in the vicinity of the Greater Antilles but
changes elsewhere and in winter are uncertain. Annual rainfall is likely to increase in the northern
Indian Ocean with increases likely in the vicinity of the Seychelles in December, January and February,
and in the vicinity of the Maldives in June, July and August, while decreases are likely in the vicinity
of Mauritius in June, July and August (Figure 8.6). Annual rainfall is likely to increase in the equatorial
Paciﬁc, while decreases are projected by most models for just east of French Polynesia in December
and January.

8.4 Conclusion

“Climate change will constitute an increasing risk for tourism operators in many destinations. With
many tourism activities heavily dependent on the climate and insurance policies increasingly
affected by natural hazards, accurate weather information and forecasting of extreme climatic
events are becoming ever more important for tourism businesses.”

Francesco Frangialli, UNWTO Secretary-General (2005)

The use of weather and climate information in the tourism sector is on the rise, but there are still large
opportunities to enhance decision-making in the sector with existing meteorological information and
by developing new tailored forecast products.

190, 191

The importance of utilizing available weather and

climate information will only increase in an era of climate change. Improving the use of weather and
climate information in the tourism sector is a challenge that will require closer collaboration between
the climate and tourism research communities, national meteorological services, tourism authorities
and the tourism industry. The recent collaboration between the WMO and UNWTO to establish an
Expert Team on Climate and Tourism is an important initiative to facilitate this collaboration at an
international level. In addition, mechanisms such as Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) provide
an opportunity to extend multidisciplinary training and awareness building at regional and national
levels. RCOFs are held regularly in a number of regions around the world and foster direct interaction
between climate prediction specialists and user groups, including the tourism sector, in the development
of consensus-based regional climate predictions and related product.

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Chapter 9

Impacts and Adaptation

at Tourism Destinations

The tourism industry and destinations are clearly sensitive to climate variability and change.

193, 194, 195,

196, 197

Climate deﬁnes the length and quality of multi-billion dollar tourism seasons and plays a major

role in destination choice and tourist spending. In many destinations tourism is closely linked with the
natural environment. Climate affects a wide range of the environmental resources that are critical to
tourism, such as snow conditions, wildlife productivity and biodiversity, water levels and quality. It also
inﬂuences various facets of tourism operations (e.g., snow-making, irrigation needs, heating-cooling
costs). The major types of climate change impacts projected by the IPCC

198, 199

that have the greatest

potential signiﬁcance for the tourism sector are outlined in Table 9.1

Table 9.1 Major climate change impacts and implications for tourism destinations

Impact

Implications for tourism

Warmer temperatures

Altered seasonality, heat stress for tourists, cooling costs, changes in
plant-wildlife-insect populations and distribution, infectious disease ranges

Decreasing snow cover and
shrinking glaciers

Lack of snow in winter sport destinations, increased snow-making costs,
shorter winter sports seasons, aesthetics of landscape reduced

Increasing frequency and intensity
of extreme storms

Risk for tourism facilities, increased insurance costs/loss of insurability,
business interruption costs

Reduced precipitation and
increased evaporation in some
regions

Water shortages, competition over water between tourism and other
sectors, desertification, increased wildfires threatening infrastructure and
affecting demand

Increased frequency of heavy
precipitation in some regions

Flooding damage to historic architectural and cultural assets, damage to
tourism infrastructure, altered seasonality

Sea level rise

Coastal erosion, loss of beach area, higher costs to protect and maintain
waterfronts

Sea surface temperatures rise

Increased coral bleaching and marine resource and aesthetics degradation
in dive and snorkel destinations

Changes in terrestrial and marine
biodiversity

Loss of natural attractions and species from destinations, higher risk of
diseases in tropical-subtropical countries

More frequent and larger forest
fires

Loss of natural attractions; increase of flooding risk; damage to tourism
infrastructure

Soil changes (e.g., moisture levels,
erosion and acidity)

Loss of archaeological assets and other natural resources, with impacts on
destination attractions

Climate change will have both negative and positive impacts on the tourism sector and these impacts will
vary substantially by market segment and geographic region. Consequently, there will be ‘winners and
losers’ at the business, destination and nation level. Importantly, all tourism businesses and destinations
will need to adapt to climate change in order to minimize associated risks and capitalize upon new
opportunities, in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner. The vulnerability
of tourism is particularly concerning in those areas where tourism constitutes the major livelihood of
local communities, as it is the case in many developing countries and Small Island Developing States.

While it remains beyond its scope to examine the full range of impacts upon the diversity of tourism
destinations around the world, the subsequent section will offer a detailed discussion of potential impacts

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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 natural-
cultural 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 long-
haul 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.

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Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

of the USA). In contrast, lower winter ratings in Mexico suggest it could become less competitive as a
winter sun-and-sea destination.

Similarly, signiﬁcant shifts in tourism climate suitability patterns have been projected for Europe towards
the end of the 21st century

201

, and these will alter the push-pull factors inﬂuencing decisions about

tourist destinations. The Mediterranean region is projected to become much less attractive for tourism
in summer and more attractive in spring and autumn. Simultaneously, the traditional source regions of
the majority of tourists to the Mediterranean, particularly Northern Europe, are projected to themselves
become more suitable for tourist activities year round, particularly in the summer. As a result it seems
likely that more of these travellers might opt to stay within their own region at this time, as well as more
people travelling from southerly regions to Northern Europe during the summer months to escape hot
summer temperatures in the Mediterranean.

202

The implications of projected changes in the tourism

climate resource over the 21st for intra- and inter-regional travel demand are discussed in more detail
in Chapter 10.

Another direct business impact of climate change on tourism would be changes in seasonal operating
costs, such as heating and cooling, snow-making, irrigation and water supply and annual insurance
costs. Although the energy expenses of the accommodation sector vary by location and by type of
accommodation, it has been estimated that energy costs expressed in terms of gross hotel revenues
typically range from 3–6%, but can be as high as 10% for some historic and luxury hotels.

203

A large

portion of overall energy consumption in the accommodation sector is related to space heating-cooling

204

and therefore changes in heating-cooling degree-days have considerable implications for energy

costs in some regions.

Table 9.2 illustrates the projected change in heating and cooling degree-days (HDD and CDD) in two
important tourism destinations in Canada under a moderate climate change scenario. In temperate
destinations like Canada the implications for energy costs will be mixed, with reduced heating costs but
increased cooling costs. In warmer climates the cost implications are likely to be unidirectional towards
increased cooling costs.

Table 9.2 Projected changes in heating- and cooling degree days

(a)

relative to 1961–1990 (%)

Destination

2040–2069

2070–2099

HDD

CDD

HDD

CDD

Toronto-Niagara Falls

–23

+239

–35

+478

Vancouver-Whistler

–29

+82

–42

+161

(a) Degree-days are the accumulated departures of temperature above or below a particular threshold value. In this analysis 18° C is

used as an indication of space heating or cooling requirements.

Source: Scott, D. and Jones, B. (2006a)

A third direct impact of changes in climate is weather extremes. The IPCC

205

has concluded that changes

in a number of weather extremes are probable as a result of projected climate change, including: higher
maximum temperature and more hot days over nearly all land areas (very likely), greater tropical storm
intensity and peak winds (likely), more intense precipitation events over many land areas (very likely),
and longer and more severe droughts in many mid-latitude continental interiors (likely). Increased
tropical storm intensity would affect the tourism industry through increased infrastructure damage,
additional emergency preparedness planning, higher operating expenses (e.g., insurance, backup water
and power systems, and evacuations), and business interruptions.

Indirect impacts from environmental change

Because environmental and climatic conditions are such a critical resource for tourism, any subsequent
changes will have an inescapable effect on the industry. Changes in water availability, snow cover,
the loss in biodiversity at destination level, degradation of the aesthetics of destination landscapes,

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agricultural production, increase of natural hazards, coastal impacts, damage to infrastructure and the
increasing incidence of vector-borne diseases all impact on tourism in various ways.

In this Section some of the relationships between these changes and tourism impacts are examined in
summary. Other climate-induced environmental changes are described in more detail in the following
Sections of this Chapter when examining implications for key tourism destinations; mountains, islands
and coastal zones, and natural and cultural heritage destinations.

The projected decrease in rainfall levels in some of the world’s major tourism regions will very likely
affect current destinations, as well as future developments. In some areas this issue relates to potential
water scarcity, both shortages in water for basic needs as well as water distribution problems, relating
to competition for water between different sectors (e.g., agriculture and tourism), or between different
forms of use in tourism establishments (e.g., rooms, kitchen, cleaning, swimming pools, maintenance
of gardens, golf courses etc.) as opposed to their uses such as agriculture. UNEP

206

notes that the

tourism industry is an intensive water user, and the impacts of wasteful and inefﬁcient use of the water
resources can be very detrimental. Examples include evidence from Israel, where water use by hotels
along the River Jordan is thought to be contributing to the drying up of the Dead Sea, with the water
level having dropped 16.4 metres since 1977. Additionally, golf tourism has an enormous impact on
water withdrawals – an eighteen-hole golf course can consume more than 2.3 million litres a day.

207

On average, a golf course requires 10–15,000 m

of water per hectare/year. A golf course covers

between 50–150 hectares, which means that the annual consumption of a golf course is around 1
million cubic metres per year, the equivalent of the water consumption of a city of 12,000 inhabitants.

208

These negative consequences of tourism on water supplies have to be considered in the broader

context with the many and varied positive consequences tourism brings to an area, including economic
stability and trade.

In addition to water problems relating to rainfall declines in some areas, water supplies stored in glaciers
and snow cover are also projected to decline, resulting in reduced water availability in summer seasons
in regions supplied by melt water from major mountain ranges. These mountain areas are not only
popular tourist destinations but more critically, they are also areas where more than one-sixth of the
world population currently lives.

209

Conversely, water excesses such as ﬂooding, usually related to extreme weather events, will impact
on both natural and cultural heritage attractions in many regions. For example, major geological
problems identiﬁed for Italian cultural heritage sites relate to ﬂoods and associated landslides.

210

In Peru, intense precipitation during the 1997–1998 El Niño events have signiﬁcantly contributed to
increased groundwater levels, causing damage to the earthen architectural structures at the Chan Chan
Archaeological Zone in the north of the country.

211

In the context of natural heritage attractions of

particular importance to tourism, it

is estimated that 16% of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed in

the 1997–1998

El Niño event.

212

In south and east Africa, this was compounded in 2000 by

widespread

ﬂooding

resulting in increased rates of dying off of coral reefs, from

18.6% in 1999 to 51.3% in 2001.

213

Coral reefs are a major tourist attraction in many coastal and island areas around the world, so any

long-term damage arising from such incidents will have major implications for the industry.

The major impacts of climate change on biodiversity, ecosystems and landscapes can be categorized
into three broad areas:

214, 215, 216, 217

impacts at different spatial scales; ecological communities, along environmental gradients, at the
regional level;

impacts on different environments: soil, rivers and estuaries, sea and coastal zones, terrestrial
ecosystems;

impacts on speciﬁc areas such as protected areas.

Between 20 and 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at risk of extinction
if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 – 2.5° C.

218

The changes in biodiversity will, in

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turn, impact on tourism by affecting, for example, the levels or the very existence of endemic species,
animal populations, birdsong, the ﬂowering of plants, coral reef, and the type and cover of forests.

219, 220, 221, 222

See additional discussion on biodiversity impacts on natural and cultural heritage in

Section 9.1.4.

Landscape aesthetics, the presence of natural hazards and the extent of damage to infrastructure will
be affected by climate-induced environmental change in a number of ways; e.g., ﬂooding, coastal
erosion, desertiﬁcation, an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events such as hurricanes and
tropical storms, and changes in geomorphology. For example, future climate change has the potential to
increase signiﬁcantly the nature, frequency and magnitude of natural hazards in mountain regions via
the processes of glacier retreat and the melting of permafrost.

223, 224, 225

Because glaciers are coupled

to their slope and valley-ﬂoor, retreat impacts upon these in a number of complex ways including
heightened risk of rockfalls, glacial lake outburst ﬂoods, large-scale debris ﬂow events and increasingly
dynamic valley ﬂoors that are susceptible to deep and rapid river entrenchment. These form signiﬁcant
natural hazards which in many glaciated mountain regions of the world increase the vulnerability
of destinations and socio-economic infrastructure in such regions. Furthermore, recent research has
shown that mountain slopes underlain by permafrost are at high risk of future instability with climate
warming.

226, 227

The health status of millions of people will be impacted by projected climate change-related exposures,
particularly those regions with a low adaptive capacity.

228

Countries identiﬁed as having the lowest

adaptive capacity are predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and developing countries in Asia and Central
Asia, with regions experiencing conﬂict situations and small-island states also included in this category.

229, 230

Direct impacts from extreme weather events and environmental change will have consequences

on morbidity and mortality, but the indirect impacts may be more signiﬁcant. The greatest impacts are
likely to be caused by proportionally small increases in diseases that currently have major impacts
already, but which will become more widely prevalent, such as diarrhoea, malnutrition and vector-
borne diseases.

231, 232

Though some of the regions most severely impacted are not, on a world scale,

major tourist destinations when the number of trips is considered (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa), it must be
recognized that tourism can be of a signiﬁcant importance to their economy and their communities’
livelihoods.

The ability of some destinations to provide tourist facilities, services and products will be compromised
by these indirect impacts from climate change. Alterations in the spatial distribution of vector-borne
diseases are anticipated, so that diseases such as malaria (Figure 9.1), dengue fever, viral encephalitis
and Lyme disease are projected to occur in regions where they have been previously unknown. Potential
disease transmission rates may increase substantially for diseases such as malaria (P. falciparum – Figure
9.1), where the risk of transmission is projected to double in across Western Europe and Eastern United
States by the 2020s and large parts of central Asia, Mexico and regions of South America by the 2050s.

233

These developments will compromise infrastructures in some destinations, and their ability to cater

adequately for tourism, as well affecting tourists themselves who will be exposed to new risks when
travelling.

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Figure 9.1 Future transmission potential for the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum relative to

the baseline period (1970s = 1, doubling = 2)

(a)

(a)

HadCM3 climate change scenario (monthly mean temperature and precipitation) for the 2020s and 2050s

Source: Martens, P. et al (1999)

Climate change is also expected to have some impacts on food production that will have subsequent
implications for tourism. Agricultural productivity is projected to decrease at even small temperature
increases (1–2° C) in developing nations, particularly those at lower latitudes.

234

Adverse impacts on

food supplies would risk increases in nutritional deﬁcits, gastro-intestinal infections and psychological
stresses, placing additional burdens on local health services

235

, with consequent impacts on all sectors,

including tourism.

Other shifts in agricultural production will not affect the health of local populations or the ability
to supply the local tourism industry, but rather affect the attractiveness of destinations for speciﬁc
tourism markets. A primary example is the impact of climate change on wine production, particularly
high-quality vintages, and the implications for wine tourism. Wine grapes have acute environmental
sensitivity and there are indications that climate change is already affecting the taste of wines from
some regions. Regions that are currently producing high-quality grapes at the margins of their optimal
climatic zone may be thrust into a climate that is no longer suited to the grapes now grown. Areas of
France, Australia and California that are renowned for high-quality wines are projected to see grape
growing conditions impaired by mid to late-century.

236, 237

Conversely other more pole ward wine

growing regions (Southern England, southern New Zealand, southern British Columbia Canada) are
projected to be able to produce higher-quality vintages and may beneﬁt from a shift in wine tourism
over time.

238

2020s

2050s

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Societal Change, including impacts of economic disruption and political instability

The Stern Review

(2006)

Climate change is thought to pose a risk to future economic growth and to the political stability of
some nations.

239, 240, 241, 242

Although not without debate

243

, the Stern Review is generally considered

to be the most comprehensive assessment of the economics of global climate change. It concluded
that although a rise of only 1° C might beneﬁt global GDP, greater climate change would eventually
damage economic growth at the global scale, including the stark conclusion that if we do nothing to
stem climate change, there could be an eventual permanent reduction in consumption per capita of
20% later in the 21st century or early 22nd century.

244

These costs would not be shared evenly, with

a disproportionate burden falling on the poorest countries. The uneven distribution of climate change
burdens raises questions of international and intergeneration fairness and justice. Anthropogenic climate
change has been brought about predominantly by the activities of developed countries, while some of
the most acute impacts will fall on developing countries.

245, 246, 247, 248

As noted previously, many such

developing countries are likely to have a low adaptive capacity and therefore an inability to adapt to or
manage these impacts of climate change in an effective way.

The Stern Review notes that tackling climate change is a pro-growth strategy for the longer term, with
the beneﬁts of strong, early action considerably outweighing the costs of inaction. Any reductions
of global GDP due to climate change would likely have negative implications for anticipated future
growth in tourism spending, however there has been no in depth interpretation of the Stern Review

249

for the tourism sector.

“If climate protection policy fails (mitigation) […] it is likely that from the mid 21st century local
and regional conﬂicts will proliferate and the international system will be destabilized, threatening
global economic development and overstretching global governance structures.”

German Advisory Council on Global Change (2007)

Climate change is considered a national and international security risk that will steadily intensify,
particularly under greater warming scenarios.

250, 251, 252, 253

Regional climate change impacts such

as degradation of fresh water resources, declining food production, increased storm related disasters,
and trans-boundary environmental migration could overwhelm local capacities to respond and result
in violence and the destabilization of fragile governments. Climate change associated security risks
have been identiﬁed in a number of regions where tourism is highly important to local-national
economies: Caribbean and Central America, Mediterranean North Africa, and China.

254, 255, 256, 257,

258

A security-related decline in tourism would exacerbate deteriorating of economic performance in

these destinations.

There is crucial interdependence between tourism, economies, community livelihoods and the
environment, and climate change is likely to undermine development objectives in many developing
countries.

259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264

Most developing nations do not have sufﬁcient human, ﬁnancial and

technical capital to effectively address climate change, particularly those countries with a wide range of
existing socio-economic and environmental challenges. The more dramatic impacts of climate change
(including ﬂood, drought, risk of unstable food security, decrease in public health and disease, and
loss of biodiversity) will increase the vulnerability of already vulnerable regions potentially resulting in
increased poverty.

Factors such as widespread poverty, recurrent droughts, a dependence on natural resources and
biodiversity make sub-Saharan Africa more acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than

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most other regions in the world.

265, 266, 267

Inequitable land distribution, an over dependence on rain

fed agriculture, disease and governance issues also combine to ensure that the consequences of climate
change in Africa will have inevitable ‘knock-on effects’ on the tourism sector and the livelihoods of the
communities’ that rely on tourism.

268

This Section has provided an overview of the main impacts of climate change on tourism demand and
supply. The subsequent Sections will cover in more detail issues relating to the three major destination
types with recognised vulnerabilities: mountains, islands and coastal zones, and natural-cultural
heritage areas.

9.1.2 Mountain and Winter Sports Destinations

Mountain regions are important destinations for global tourism. Snow cover and pristine mountain
landscapes are the principal attractions for tourism in these regions are the features that are most
vulnerable to climate change.

269, 270, 271

Winter sports tourism

“Climate change is the most pressing issue facing the ski industry today.”

Patrick O’Donnell, Chief Executive Ofﬁcer of Aspen Skiing Company

272

The impact of climate change on the snow-based sports tourism industry is potentially severe. The
multi-billion Euro international winter sports industry* has been repeatedly identiﬁed as at risk to
global climate change due to the close linkage between economic performance and climate through
the availability of natural snow and suitable climatic conditions to make snow. Known vulnerabilities
exist in Australia, Austria, Spain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States,
however the projected impacts on destinations in these nations vary in magnitude and over different
time horizons.

273, 274

The key climate change impacts of interest to the winter sports industry relate to

‘natural snow reliability’ and also ‘technical snow reliability’ (i.e., cold temperatures to make snow).
The latter is important in areas where snow-making is almost universal among ski areas and covers a
high proportion of skiable terrain.

European Alps

A considerable number of studies have been completed on the impact of climate change on skiing in
the European Alps.

275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280

The most comprehensive was recently conducted for the

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

281

It determined that the number of ski

areas that were considered ‘naturally snow reliable’

** dropped from 609 (91%) to 404 (61%) under

a +2° C warming scenario and further declined to 202 (30%) under a +4° C warming scenario. By
comparison, climate change scenarios for the European Alps project an annual warming of 2.3 to 3.3° C
by mid-century and 2.9 to 5.3° C by the end of the 21st century, and even more pronounced warming
in winter months.

282, 283

The impacts varied among the ﬁve nations examined, with the ski industry in

Germany found to be the most at risk. Snow-making is already a widespread climate adaptation in the
region, with the proportion of skiable terrain currently equipped with snow-making estimated at 50%
in Austria, 40% in Italy, 18% in Switzerland, 15% in the French Alps, and 11% in Germany (Bavaria).

The ski industry, not including apparel and equipment sales = Euro 9 billion (see Scott 2006b); snowmobile industry = Euro
18 billion (International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association 2007); there are limited data on the economic value of other
winter sports, such as nordic skiing, ice ﬁshing or snowshoeing

Deﬁned as the upper half of a ski area having at least a 30 cm natural snow base for 100-days.

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Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

Critically, the heavily cited OECD analysis did not account for snow-making. It therefore does not
reﬂect the operating realities of many ski operators and has likely overestimated the potential damages
to these businesses. Major uncertainties on the impacts for businesses also relate to the acceptance of
customers to ski on partially snow covered ski runs, such as illustrated in Figure 9.2, or the potential for
large reductions in opportunities for Nordic skiing at low mountain elevations.

The winter of 2006-2007 was the warmest on record over most parts of the Alps and estimated to be the
warmest winter in the past millennium in some locations.

284, 285

The impact of this record warm winter

on the ski industry is still being tabulated, but the delayed opening of the season and inability to make
snow in some locations were prominent impacts. Analysis of this climate change analogue will provide
important new information on the ability of ski areas to operate and remain proﬁtable under conditions
similar to those projected decades from now.

Figure 9.2 Partially operating ski area near Salzburg, Austria (mid-January 2007)

Photo credit: Stadel, B.

Scotland

Trends in ski season length at the Cairngorm ski area in Scotland from 1972 to 1996 reveal a shorter
average season, but at the highest elevation ski lift (1,060–1,150 m) there was no change.

286

Based on

an analysis of the exceptionally mild winter of 1988–1989, it has been suggested that ski areas above
1,000 m would still have sufﬁcient natural snow cover for skiing in warmer winters.

287

However, the

warm winter of 1988–1989 was not compared against future climate change scenarios for this region,
so the future operation of ski areas in Scotland remains uncertain.

Eastern North America

Snow-making is integral to the ski industry in Eastern Canada and the US and most ski areas have
virtually complete coverage of their skiable terrain. A second generation of climate change assessments,
which account for snow-making, have substantially improved our understanding of the risk climate
change poses to the ski industry in this region.

288, 289

Advanced snow-making systems substantially

lower the vulnerability of ski areas in eastern North America to climate change at least through the
middle of the 21st century. Ski season losses are projected to range from 8–46% in Ontario and 4–34%
in Quebec depending on the climate change scenario, with high emission scenarios causing much larger
impacts.

290, 291

In New England, with advanced snow-making capabilities, only one of 14 locations

was projected to lose greater than 25% of its ski season under low emission scenarios by mid century.

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

However, high emission scenarios had a much greater impact, with eight locations projected to lose
25% or more of their ski season by mid-century and half losing 45% or more of their ski season by the
end of the 21st century.

292

In order to limit ski season losses to the levels described above, mid century snow-making requirements
were projected to increase by 62–151% in Ontario, 18–150% in Québec, and 3–86% in New England.
At the end of the century, several locations required more than double the machine-made snow of
today, while in other locations warm temperatures made snow-making unfeasible during parts of the
winter months.

Another major snow-based winter sport in North America is snowmobiling, which in some regions
(Midwest, Plains-Prairies, New England, Ontario and Quebec) exceeds skiing in terms of number
of participants and economic impact. According to the International Snowmobile Manufacturers
Association the annual economic impact of snowmobiling is US$ 25 billion in the US and Canada.

293

The snowmobiling industry in North America is much more vulnerable to climate change than is the
ski industry, because it is completely reliant on natural snowfall. Under high emission climate change
scenarios a reliable snowmobile season disappears from most regions of eastern North America (New
England, southern Ontario and Quebec, and the Midwest states) with developed trail networks by mid-
century and earlier in some areas.

294, 295

Western North America

Although the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains are home to some of North America’s most widely
known winter tourism destinations, the implications for major ski areas in the region have not yet been
comprehensively examined. Considering only changes in natural snow conditions, the ski season in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains of California was projected to decrease 3–6 weeks by mid-century and 7–15
weeks by the end of this century.

296

Taking snow-making into account, ski seasons at high elevation ski

areas near Aspen Colorado were projected to decrease by 10 days in the next two decades and become
28–70 days shorter by 2100.

297

A recent media release proclaimed that the ‘Ski Industry in Rockies May Be Shut Down by 2050’.

298

However, this analysis did not examine the impact of climate change on any key performance indicator
of the ski industry, such as operational ski days (season length), capacity to operate during economically
key holiday periods, snow-making requirements and costs, or skier visits. Consequently, such a
conclusion is unfounded and highlights the need for sound science on this issue so that misinformation
that could be damaging to the ski industry is not propagated to investors and skiers.

Australia

Under a warming scenario of +3° C and precipitation decline of 20%, none of Australia’s ski areas were
projected to have enough natural snow cover to remain ﬁnancially viable.

299

However, with sufﬁcient

investment in snow-making systems and necessary water supply, it was estimated that all of the ski areas
would be able to cope with the impact of projected climate change over the next 25 years but not likely
through to mid-century.

300

The preceding summary of impacts focused on average changes to ski seasons and not extreme seasons.
Inter-annual variability is very likely to be more pronounced under climate change, creating increasingly
challenging business conditions. It may not matter to ski area operators if every ski season by mid-
century is a couple of weeks shorter, as much of the season loss will occur at the beginning and end of
the season when skier visits are relatively low.

301

Conversely, two or three consecutive extremely warm

winters, could cause substantive economic losses and if frequent enough perhaps adversely affecting
skier perceptions and demand in the longer term.

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Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

Beginner ski runs are typically found at lower elevations, where the general ﬁnding is that the impact
of climatic change would be more pronounced. Most people learn to ski on these lower-lying beginner
slopes and the implications of fewer such slopes for discouraging beginning skiers or possibly diminishing
the industry’s client base over time remains uncertain. There are divergent views on how best to manage
this risk. Some regard market-based contraction of the sector as healthy, while others contend there is
essential to retain these ‘nursery ski areas’ through subsidies, for regional economic reasons and the
future of the ski industry.

302, 303, 304, 305

With the possible exception of the Australian and Scottish ski industries, which appear to be entirely
at risk to moderate or high warming scenarios over the next 50 years, the probable consequence of
climate change will be a contraction in the number of ski operators in most regional markets. Although
climate change would contribute to the demise of many ski businesses, it could advantage some of
the ski operations that remain. If skier demand remained relatively stable, as it has in some climate
change analogue years (see Box 2), remaining ski businesses would be in a position to gain market
share through diminished competition. The socio-economic implications of a climate change induced
contraction of the ski tourism marketplace for communities have yet to be examined, but it is clear that
both communities that are at risk of losing ski operators and those where ski operations are likely to
persist will need to adapt to climate change, though for very different reasons. The former will need to
adjust to reduced winter tourism spending, lost employment, and potentially declining real estate prices,
while the latter will need to plan for increased visitation, congestion, and perhaps greater development
pressures.

306, 307

What is clear is that adaptation to maintain skiing as a central cultural and economic

component of many alpine communities in an era of climate change will require signiﬁcant economic
investment and careful environmental planning. The adaptation options available to ski operators and
communities are further discussed below.

Changing Alpine Landscapes

Nature-based tourism is also a vital component of tourism in mountain regions of the world. Climate
change is projected to have substantial impacts on sensitive mountain environments, with implications
for the attractiveness of mountain environments for tourism and the occurrence of natural hazards. A
survey of Mountain Biosphere Reserve (MBR) managers in 2004 about the impacts of climate change
found that the impacts on tourism and recreation were the most frequent concern, identiﬁed by 80%
of MBRs around the world.

308

Although the central question was deceptively clear – how will climate

change affect this economically critical sector – answers from MBR managers remain elusive.

Climate-induced environmental change has been documented in several mountain ranges of the world
that are key tourism destinations (the European Alps, Rockies, Andes, and Himalayas). Glaciers provide
some of the most dramatic scenery that attract tourists to mountain destinations (e.g., visitors per year:
Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand 250,000

309

; Columbia Ice Fields, Banff National Park, Canada 600,000

310

; Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina 167,000

311

). An estimated 7,000 km

have been lost from

mountain glaciers in the last 40 years.

312

Glacier extent has decreased by 30–40% in the European Alps

during the 20th century

313

and a similar decrease of 25% has been recorded in the Canadian Rockies

over the same period.

314

Glacier National Park in the USA has lost 115 of its 150 glaciers over the past

century and scientists estimate that the remaining 35 glaciers will disappear over the next 30 years.

315

In addition to aesthetic impacts for tourism, shrinking of glaciers modify the water-storage capacities of
mountains, thus affecting downstream ecosystems and water supply in some destinations.

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Figure 9.3 Retreat of Muir and Riggs glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (Alaska,

USA)

Photo credit: Global Warming Art

316

Climate change also has serious implications for the biodiversity of mountain ecosystems. Many alpine
species have limited capacity to move to higher altitudes in response to warming temperatures and
displacement by lowland species. This is especially true of isolated populations on ‘mountain islands’,
where, with nowhere to go, the danger of localized extinctions is considerable. The loss of colourful
mountain meadows and upslope migration of the tree line have been observed in mountain ranges of
North America

317

and in the European Alps, and some plants previously found only on mountaintops

have disappeared

318

Certain natural processes which pose hazards to people and development in mountain regions have
accelerated as a result of recent warming and deglaciation, including glacier avalanches, landslides
and slope instability caused by glacier debuttressing and permafrost melting, and outburst ﬂoods from
moraine- and glacier-dammed lakes.

319

Changes in natural hazards in mountain destinations pose

an increased risk to tourists and tourism infrastructure. The unprecedented melting of the Belvedere
Glacier during the summer of 2002, for example, created a new glacial lake that Italian government
engineers feared threatened to destroy the alpine resort near the town of Macugnaga.

320

In contrast, the warmer climate conditions that are projected to drastically reshape alpine landscapes
will also provide opportunities for mountain destinations to extend the warm-weather tourism season
(including activities like hiking and mountain biking)

321, 322

and provide comfortable climatic conditions

as a retreat from the heat in urban centres and valleys.

323, 324

The implications of climate change for

altered seasonal tourist demand and tourist perceptions of projected changes in the physical landscape
in mountain regions are further discussed in Chapter 10.

9.1.3 Impacts on Islands and Coastal Zones

Islands and coastal zones are among the most vulnerable tourist destinations to climate change. The
main observed and projected climatic changes in island destinations are an increased intensity and
frequency of extreme events, sea level rise, changes in ocean circulation, and changes in natural
ecosystems.

325, 326, 327, 328

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Extreme events

There is high conﬁdence that the most immediate and more signiﬁcant consequences of climate change
are likely to be changes in the nature of extreme events (e.g., ﬂooding, tropical cyclones, storm surges,
heat waves) and climatic variability (e.g., droughts, and prevailing winds accelerating coastal erosion,
see Figure 9.4).

329, 330, 331, 332

Coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to extreme wind events. Wind-

storm disasters account for about one-third of all natural disasters throughout the world (by number,
fatalities and economic losses), whilst accounting for more than two-thirds of the corresponding insured
losses and major wind-storm disasters and the losses generated by them have increased drastically in
recent decades.

333

An increase in the frequency of extreme cyclones has occurred in the last decade

and is projected to continue, bringing more extreme wind events.

334

Figure 9.4 Erosion of shoreline and damage to tourism infrastructure due to hurricane Ivan in

Tobago

Photo credit: Simpson, M. C.

The causal relationship between climate change and the observed increase in extreme events is still under
debate. Some scientists highlight the role of Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation patterns, as opposed to
global warming activities, in the recorded 20–30 year storm cycles, the latest of which commenced
in 1995. The heavy hurricane toll of 2004 and 2005 in the Gulf of Mexico is seen as indicative of the
development of this cycle, preceded by the last active cycle during 1940–1960.

335, 336

However, there is much compelling evidence that the current levels of tropical cyclone activity are
largely a response to climate change from anthropogenic causes.

337, 338, 339

In the North Atlantic

regions, the observed 20–30 year variations in tropical cyclone and hurricane frequency over the past
century have been characterised by a 50% increase in cyclone activity with each subsequent multi-
decadal cycle through the last 100 years. These increases are closely correlated with increasing sea
surface temperatures (SSTs): “[…] a substantial 100-year trend leading to related increases of over 0.7° C
in SST and over 100% in tropical cyclone and hurricane numbers.”

340

Anthropogenically-produced

greenhouse gases have contributed to a general trend, whereby raised SSTs, and increased tropical
cyclone and hurricane numbers are “[…] substantially inﬂuenced by greenhouse warming.”

341

Variations in cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons in many small-island tropical and sub-tropical regions
are dominated by El Nino events and characterised by decadal variability. In addition, increases in
the distribution of tropical storm increases in one area are mirrored by decreases in other areas.

342

Although the number of

cyclones and cyclone days has decreased in most areas during the past decade,

there has been a large

increase in the number and proportion of extreme hurricanes

(categories 4 and

5).

343

These increases in hurricane intensity coincide with an increase in sea surface temperatures.

Sea temperature warming has ranged from 0 to 0.5° C per decade between 1971 and 2004, for the
Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean regions.

344

Evidence appears to indicate the correlation

between higher sea temperatures and increasing hurricane intensity, and there appears to be a general
trend towards

more frequent intense hurricanes.

345

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Box 5 Extreme storm events in the Caribbean

Caribbean small islands states (SIS) are extremely vulnerable to hurricanes. Future warming is likely
to lead to greater hurricane force intensity and destructive potential, and subsequently increased
hurricane-related losses across coastal regions.

346

There has been a marked increase in activity

since 1994 with a very high level of hurricane activity in the 2004–2005 seasons. This has been
attributed to increased sea surface temperature (SST) coupled with anomalies in wind patterns,
particularly in 2005 with the highest SST recorded since 1870 across the western tropical Atlantic
and Gulf of Mexico,

347

leading to record tropical storm activity, with 15 named storms making

landfall in the Atlantic basin.

348

Figure 9.5 North Atlantic hurricanes have increased with sea surface temperature

Source: Pachauri and Jallow (2007)

349

Seasonal records for the number of tropical storms (42) and hurricanes (24) in the Mexican Gulf
were established by the combination of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. During the hurricane
season in 2004 and 2005 anomalies in sea surface temperature existed in the main hurricane
development region along with anomalies in sea level pressure and in the trade-winds.

Figure 9.6 Selection of major gulf hurricanes in 2004-2005

Source: Saunders and Lea (2006)

350, 351

SST

(1944-2005)

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Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

The losses experienced in Honduras and Nicaragua from Hurricane Mitch in 1999 totalled more than
the combined GDP of both countries and over 7000 people died in Honduras.

352

Similarly, the major

cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1991 resulted in a storm surge of 7 metres and winds of 235 miles/hour;
over 138,000 people were killed and 840,000 homes destroyed, with over 12 million people impacted
by the cyclone.

353

The economic impact of strong storm events on tourism is substantial. The ten-day closure and clean-
up following Hurricane Georges in 1998 resulted in tourism revenue losses of approximately US$ 32
million in the Florida Keys.

354

The economic impact of the four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004

was estimated to be several times larger. However, this revenue was not lost to the industry as whole,
as other US destinations such as Arizona and California beneﬁted from the transfer of large numbers of
visitors not going to Florida.

355

With 26 tropical storms and 14 hurricanes, the 2005 hurricane season

was one of the most active and destructive in history, spawning three of the most intense North Atlantic
storms on record, including Hurricane Katrina with its associated environmental, social and economic
impacts. Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage to the tourism infrastructure in New Orleans and
Coastal Mississippi, with major losses in tourism, convention business and gambling expected for some
time after the event.

356

Sea level rise

Sea level rise is of major importance to tourism given that most tourism activities take place in coastal
zones. Further global sea level rises could range from 31 to 65 cm by 2100, aggravating coastal erosion
and leading to the loss of beaches.

357

This is primarily a consequence of the expansion of sea water

(70–75%), as a result of the increase in oceanic temperatures, and of the continued melting of mountain
glaciers and small ice caps.

358

In a few countries the sea level has fallen due to tectonic uplift; however,

overall, sea level is projected to rise, at an escalating rate. Even small rises in sea level will result
in signiﬁcant erosion and submersion of land, increased ﬂood hazard, contamination of freshwater
aquifers, loss of protective coral reefs, mangrove areas and sand beaches which will increase exposure
to hurricanes and storm surges in coastal zones. In small island regions especially, much of the biological
diversity and most of the population, agricultural land and capital assets are located in these areas and
so at risk.

359

This has major implications for tourism which needs to be assessed. In the Indian Ocean,

the Maldives average only 1.5 meters above sea level and projected rates of sea level rise are likely
to inundate large areas of the different islands and atolls. Of the archipelago’s 1,192 islands and coral
atolls, 194 are inhabited, and the beaches on 60% of those are already facing varying degrees of erosion
and encroachment. Other low lying islands, such as the Bahamas and Kiribati, face similar problems.

360

One-quarter of the Indian population live along the coastline and are to a great extent dependent on

coastal livelihoods. Sea level rises ill have major impacts in these areas especially in the Bay of Bengal
area which also experiences seasonal monsoon and cyclonic patterns.

361

In Europe, the EUROSION study

362

into the management of coastal erosion throughout the EU reported

that 20% of the European shoreline is retreating and/or is being artiﬁcially stabilised. Its ﬁndings
indicated that for Europe, the value of economic assets located within 500 metres of EU coastline, and
at risk from sea level rises (including those related to infrastructure, industry, agriculture and tourism),
is € 500 to € 1,000 Billion.

Ocean circulations

Sophisticated computer-based global climate models are now used to estimate global winds and
ocean currents. Ocean currents have a large inﬂuence on local climatic conditions. Changes in rainfall
variability and tropical cyclone characteristics in the South Paciﬁc, for example, are strongly dependent
on El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). El Niño manifests in a decrease in precipitation for areas
in the Western Paciﬁc (e.g., Australia). As the El Niño develops, the extent of its inﬂuence on global
weather increases, resulting in anomalous weather and climate conditions worldwide. This includes
a decrease in tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean, droughts in the Caribbean and Central

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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

America, increased tropical storm activity in the Eastern Paciﬁc, and wet conditions in the Southern
USA and Eastern Africa. The drought, ﬂoods and ﬁres that inﬂict Southeast Asia during an El Niño have
a major impact on the region’s tourism industry, due in part to the haze resulting from man-made ﬁres
reducing visibility, impeding air trafﬁc and increasing health risks.

363, 364

Ecosystems

Coastal and island ecosystems are affected by the above mentioned climate change impacts. Most
directly, extreme events can destroy ecosystems, such as mangrove forests, tropical forests or coral
reefs. In the South African Cape Floral Region, some lowland areas are threatened due to sea level rises,
which will have consequences both for the coastal ecosystem itself and for the buffering of associated
ecosystems.

365

Coral reefs especially are a crucial resource for tourism and other sectors. In many

destinations, reefs are the key pull factor (as a visitor attraction) for tourists, and therefore a major
economic asset; “[…] more than half of the tourists currently visiting the regions along the Great Barrier
Reef are ‘reef-interested’, and, as these tend to be relatively big-spending, they represent 70% of the
total tourism expenditure in these regions.”

366

The increasing sea surface temperature and increasing

acidity of the water will have an important impact on marine life and coral reefs

367

(Figure 9.7).

Figure 9.7 Coral bleaching in Tobago

Photo credit: Simpson, M. C.

Box 6 Impact and adaptation in Mauritius

368

Tourism destination and situation: Island of Mauritius, Indian Ocean – SCUBA Diving.

Climate change impact: More frequent and intense cyclones and El Niño phenomena killing and/
or damaging the coral reefs.

Adaptation strategy/strategies: Coastal Zone Management (CZM) has reduced local pollution
levels thereby attempting to increase resilience of the reef to local and global environmental
change (although ﬁndings of the study show that the state of coral reefs are only relevant for a
minor share of specialized and experience divers).

Organization implementing the adaptation strategy: Mauritius Government.

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Impacts and Adaptation at Tourism Destinations

9.1.4 Impacts on Natural and Cultural Heritage

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

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

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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Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges

Coastal areas are especially vulnerable to natural disturbances where loss of habitats, habitat
fragmentation and biological invasions may occur. The unique habitats and wildlife of the low-lying
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are threatened by sea level rise, and these islands are important
nurseries for popular species such as sea turtles and migratory birds.

380

Increased temperature will

affect the incubation and life cycle of loggerhead turtle eggs on the much visited island of Komodo.

381, 382

Higher temperatures skew the sex ratio towards a predominance of females, which may or

may not enhance the fertility of the population but any possible beneﬁcial effects will be nulliﬁed
as nesting opportunities decrease through a loss of nesting beaches due to sea level rise.

Rising sea levels will have impacts on coastal ecosystems, for example mangrove forests and
wetland areas, including the potential squeezing out of habitats especially where coastal margins
are backed by areas of intense human use or steep physical terrain which also reduces fresh water
availability.

383

Ecosystems that are already under stress, such as coral reefs that are not adequately protected by
coastal zone management plans, will be the most likely to be severely affected by climate change.
Corals have shown a high sensitivity to minor increases in temperature, rising sea temperatures
will further affect the distribution and survival of these marine resources.

384

Temporal shifts in seasons may increase the ranges of insects and diseases

385

, and affect birdsong

386, 387

and the ﬂowering of plants.

388, 389

The number of invasive species and their dissemination is likely to increase and already existing
invasive species are expected to expand their areas. For example in the Cape Flora region of
South Africa, a popular destination for tourists, trees and shrubs from Australia, California and the
Mediterranean introduced in the nineteenth century are predicted to become far more prevalent
and further threaten the high endemism in the region

390

; four out of ﬁve protected areas in South

Africa are predicted to lose 10–40% of their plant species by the year 2050.

391

Drought and desertiﬁcation may occur in tropical and sub-tropical zones, changing patterns
of precipitation and evaporation are of critical importance, and extreme ﬂooding will have
implications for large areas.

Increased frequency and magnitude of extreme events such as cyclones and storm surges will
result in loss of land area and impacts on nesting colonies and activities for seabirds and turtles,
and the migratory patterns of species.

392

Many of these issues are inﬂuenced by human-induced activity other than climate-related changes,
such as development, shipping, mining and ﬁshing. However, there is evidence that climate change
will impact on natural ecosystems in a marked way.

393

The signiﬁcance of these impacts for tourism is

diverse. Natural heritage sites are major attractions for tourism, and climate-induced changes in these
environments will impact on tourist activity. Conservation International noted in a report on tourism and
biodiversity that “[…] biodiversity [and related aspects] is essential for the continued development of
the tourism industry”.

394

However, it also noted the lack of awareness of the often important synergies

between tourism development and nature conservation,

395, 396

and the decline of tourism because of

climate change could exacerbate conservation challenges in some regions.

Cultural heritage includes considerations of built heritage (historic and architectural), archaeological
heritage and socio-cultural heritage. Architectural herita