Adapting to climate change: perceptions of vulnerability of down-hill ski area operators in Southern and Middle Finland

Climate change is likely to affect the tourism sector, particularly areas, such as snow-based tourism, that are directly dependent on climate and weather conditions. Especially vulnerable are low-lying ski areas. This study identifies the climatic factors that are crucial for economically successful operation of low-lying ski areas in Southern and Middle Finland and contemplates how these factors are seen to change with climate change. The study then analyses the preferences for and perceptions of adaptation strategies of downhill ski operators in terms of the adaptation measures they can implement or are willing to take. The findings indicate that climatic conditions set preconditions for the operation of the ski areas, but short-term operational prospects and inter-annual variability in weather conditions rather than foreseen changes in climatic conditions guide the operational decisions of the ski area operators. A key adaptation strategy to respond to uncertain snow conditions is artificial snowmaking, which lowers the vulnerability of the areas to the impacts of climate change too.     

Preparing for climate change: recognising its early impacts through the perceptions of dive tourists and dive operators in the Egyptian Red Sea

Climate change has the potential to permanently alter the attraction of many destinations and substantially impact the benefits derived from tourism. These impacts can be reduced if vulnerability to climate change is understood and operators take steps to adapt. Some of the more immediate and manageable impacts are likely to result from changes in tourist perceptions and attitudes towards climate change. We test for early impacts in the Red Sea region and for the awareness of tourism operators. We interviewed 150 tourists and 35 operators. Our data suggest that changes in tourist awareness are already apparent; yet, operators ascribe only a moderate level of environmental and climate awareness to them. This ‘perception gap’ increases the vulnerability of dive operators.     

The future of the Olympic Winter Games in an era of climate change

The Olympic Winter Games (OWG) stands as a symbol of international cross-cultural exchange through elite-level sport. As a mega-event with a significant reliance on a specific range of weather conditions for outdoor competitions, the OWG have developed several technologies and strategies to manage weather risk. Can these climatic adaptations cope with future climate change? Based on an analysis of two key climate indicators (probability of a minimum temperature of ≤0°C, and probability of a snow depth of ≥30 centimetres with advanced snowmaking capacity), this paper examines how projected changes to climate will impact the ability of the 19 previous host cities/regions to provide suitable conditions for outdoor competitions in the future. The results indicate that while the 19 former OWG hosts all have a suitable climate in the 1981–2010 period, only 11 or 10 (low–high-emission scenarios) remain climatically suitable in the 2050s, with as few as 6 in the high-emission scenario of the 2080s. The analysis reveals that climate change has important implications for the future geography of OWG host cities/regions as well as broader implications for participation in winter sport.     

An exploration of the effects of past experience and tourist involvement on destination loyalty formation

Gaining the loyalty of visitors is one of the main challenges of destinations. Previous studies generally agree that satisfaction is the key driver of tourist loyalty. However, it is necessary to conduct a more thorough study of destination loyalty formation by exploring the role of other variables as direct antecedents of loyalty and as moderators of the satisfaction–loyalty relationship. With this in mind, this study examines the influences of two variables that are especially relevant in the study of consumer behaviour in tourism: past experience and involvement. The results obtained from a sample of 807 tourists visiting a destination in Spain suggest that (1) satisfaction and past experience have a significant influence on loyalty; (2) it is necessary to separately consider the two dimensions of loyalty (i.e. the intention to return to a destination and the intention to recommend it) to understand loyalty formation; and (3) past experience is a quasi-moderator variable as it directly influences tourist loyalty and moderates the satisfaction–loyalty relationship. The findings of this research may help managers make decisions about market segmentation and guide the marketing efforts to gain loyal tourists.     

The influence of value perceptions on tourist souvenir purchase decisions

Shopping is an important activity impacting the travel and tourism industry. This research explores the influence of value perceptions on tourists' souvenir purchase decisions. A convenience sample of 380 respondents from a southeastern US university completed a survey regarding value perception towards the destination visited, type of shopping venue, and souvenir purchase intention. Through structural equation modeling, results revealed that functional and social value significantly influenced tourists' purchase intentions. This result provides valuable insight suggesting destination marketers should focus on these two indicators in future planning and promotion strategies. Limitations and directions for future research are provided.     

Tourism,climate change and adaptation: a review

The relationship between tourism and changing climate has been discussed and studied for a relatively long time in tourism research. Over the past 15 years, more focused studies have begun to appear, and especially recently, the issue of adaptation has been emphasised as an urgent research need in tourism and climate change studies. This paper is based on a systematic review of the tourism and adaptation literature prior to 2012. It discusses adaptation challenges, the dimensions of vulnerability in a tourism context and the implications of such studies on communities. By dividing the current adaptation studies into business; consumer; destination; and policy- and framework-focused theme areas and traditions, the paper concludes that adaptation studies in tourism have so far had a limited focus on community perceptions, which in general has been an area of major interest in tourism research. More emphasis on community-based research in relation to tourism and climate change allows highly contextual adaptation challenges to be met in a more sustainable way.     

A critical review of climate change risk for ski tourism

Ski tourism is a multi-billion dollar international market attracting between 300 and 350 million annual skier visits. With its strong reliance on specific climatic conditions, the ski industry is regarded as the tourism market most directly and immediately affected by climate change. A critical review of the 119 publications that have examined the climate change risk of ski tourism in 27 countries is provided. This growing and increasingly diverse literature has projected decreased reliability of slopes dependent on natural snow, increased snowmaking requirements, shortened and more variable ski seasons, a contraction in the number of operating ski areas, altered competitiveness among and within regional ski markets, and attendant implications for ski tourism employment and values of vacation property real estate values. The extent and timing of these consequences depend on the rate of climate change and the types of adaptive responses by skiers as well as ski tourism destinations and their competitors. The need to understanding differential climate risk grows as investors and financial regulators increasingly require climate risk disclosure at the destination and company scale. Key knowledge gaps to better assist ski tourism destinations to adapt to future climate risk are identified.     

Investigating the moderating effect of information sources on cruise tourist behaviour in a port of call

The aim of the study is to examine how destination knowledge acquired by cruisers through different information sources (online versus others) can moderate destination image formation and the relationship of image–satisfaction–behavioural intentions in a port of call. A multiple group analysis with partial least square method was carried out using data collected from a major tourism destination in Spain: Valencia. The findings revealed knowledge acquired through different information sources is a moderator of the image–satisfaction and satisfaction–behavioural intention relationships. The destination image formation is also significantly different from one group to the other. The findings of this study have a number of practical implications.     

The role of destination personality in predicting tourist behaviour: implications for branding mid-sized urban destinations

The purpose of this study was to explore urban tourists' perceptions of the personality of a mid-sized city destination in Greece and to assess the effect of destination personality on the city's overall image and tourists' behavioural intentions. Experience with the destination was taken into account as the sample consisted of three distinct groups of urban tourists: local residents, past visitors of the city and non-visitors. Through a mixed-methods approach, excitement and sincerity were found to be the predominant personality characteristics of the destination across all respondents. Further analyses offered support for the significant role of personality in influencing overall destination image and predicting tourists' intention to (re)visit the city or recommend it to others. Differences among the three groups as well as implications of the findings for branding small or mid-sized urban destinations are also discussed.     

The impact of daily tour service quality on tourist satisfaction and behavioural intentions in an island context: a study on tours to Isla de la Plata,Ecuador

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the impact of daily tour service quality on tourist satisfaction and behavioural intentions in an island context. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the analysis of data collected from 195 participating in a daily tour to Isla de la Plata (Ecuador) showed that all the services examined (transportation by boat, food and beverage, tourist guide and visits) had a significant direct impact on tour satisfaction, having the transportation the highest impact. Moreover, the indirect effect of the daily tours services on behavioural intentions mediated by the satisfaction with the tour was also significant.     

Tourism and climate change: a review of threats and adaptation strategies for Africa

The intersection of tourism and climate change has seen significant research over the past two decades, focusing particularly on issues of mitigation and adaptation in the global North. Research output has predominantly been centred on the Mediterranean and Nordic countries and number of localities in North America. The global South has seen significantly less investigation, despite having significantly lower adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate change, and numerous countries with rapidly growing tourism sectors. The African continent specifically has seen appreciably less research than other countries in the global South, despite arguably having the lowest adaptive capacity and projections of severe impacts of climate change to the tourism sector from temperature increases, changes in precipitation volume and sea level rise. This paper therefore presents a review of the existing literature on adaptation strategies of tourism sectors and participants in African countries. The crucial argument of this paper is in highlighting the need for an increase in research into the threats of climate change to tourism in African countries, identifying future research trajectories. The development of such knowledge would assist in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies for these most vulnerable tourism economies.     

Tourist perceptions of souvenir authenticity: an exploration of selective tourist blogs

Authenticity is a well-researched concept in tourism studies and has been an important theme during the past decades. However, literature specifically concerning souvenir authenticity in the context of tourism is limited. Handicrafts were originally made to fulfil the needs of communities such as pottery for carrying water and storing food. With the advent of tourism, changes occurred in the functions and forms of artworks and artisans began to change their crafts based largely on tourists' expectations of what souvenirs should be. The current study examined travel blog posts to understand tourist perceptions of souvenir authenticity using constructivist grounded theory. Fourteen international travel blog posts between June 2007 and February 2012 were analysed. Bloggers from Canada, USA, and England blogged about their trips to Indonesia, Croatia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Senegal, France, Peru, USA, Belgium, and Argentina. Four themes emerged describing authenticity: (1) using local materials at the destination, (2) crafting by hand and produced locally by artist, (3) displaying artist's signature or hallmark, and (4) uniqueness costing more, but higher quality and better design. Further analysis illuminates that constructivist authenticity is subjectively based upon individual connection to an object, their social networks, preconceived notions, and cultural biases.     

The perceived risks of local climate change in Queenstown,New Zealand

Place-embedded, resource-dependent industries are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The scientific framing of these risks can be understood through modelling; however, risks are perceived by non-scientific communities in more culturally relevant and localised frames. This empirical study utilised qualitative, semi-structured interviews with four stakeholder groups connected to the ski industry in Queenstown, New Zealand. The objectives of this research were to identify current scientific knowledge on climate change risks to Queenstown's ski industry and to critically address how the risk of climate change is perceived. This paper reports three main findings: (1) scientific reporting and expert interviews expect climate change to manifest as inter-annual variability up to the 2050s, (2) current climatic variability is perceived to be the greatest risk to the ski industry at present and (3) climate change is perceived to be distant and a greater threat to other people and other places giving rise to ‘optimistic bias’.     

Tourism,climate change and the mass media: the representation of the issue in Spain

This paper sets out to analyse the information dedicated to climate change and tourism in the Spanish press in the Mediterranean region of the peninsula during the period 1990–2010. Specifically, it seeks to determine the quantitative evolution of media coverage of climate change and tourism and the importance given to this subject. Adequate media attention in both quantitative and qualitative terms could greatly influence public concern and contribute to the social mobilization that will be needed to negotiate/resist the phenomenon in a geographical area in which tourism is a major economic and territorial driver and which is particularly vulnerable to climate change. To construct the corpus, we undertook a systematic analysis of newspaper coverage of tourism and climate change in the media selected; and we carried out content analysis of the 1014 units identified. The results indicate that the coverage is outstanding in quantitative terms. However, the importance given to the subject is quite marginal.     

The differential futures of ski tourism in Ontario (Canada) under climate change: the limits of snowmaking adaptation

The international ski tourism industry is highly vulnerable to inter-annual climate variability and climate change. Accordingly, there is a strong need to advance our understanding of climate risk for this multi-billion tourism market that is so important to mountain regions around the world. This study addressed major limitations in the ski tourism literature, while concurrently supporting priority information needs of ski tourism stakeholders. An improved version of SkiSim 2.0 is applied to all 34 alpine ski areas in southern Ontario (Canada) to examine potential changes in the capacity of this regional marketplace. Model improvements include differential snowmaking capacities of individual ski areas, updated snowmaking decision rules, as well as a new indicator, termed ‘terrain-days’, to estimate changes in system capacity. The results project two fundamentally different futures for this ski tourism marketplace under climate change. If the international community succeeds in achieving the?+?2°C Paris Agreement policy goal, then losses in system capacity can be limited to less than 10% in the mid- and late-century. In contrast, a high-end emission scenario (RCP 8.5) would severely disrupt this ski tourism market by mid-century, with system capacity losses between 28% and 73%.     

Collaborative governance for low-carbon tourism: climate change initiatives by Australian tourism agencies

The Australian tourism industry is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on natural areas and the destination choices of long-haul travellers concerned about carbon emissions. A National Tourism and Climate Change Taskforce was established in 2007; with a national action plan for Tourism and Climate Change produced in 2008. Implementing these climate change actions requires new partnerships between tourism agencies, business programmes, carbon consultants, and offset providers. This paper assesses collaborative governance of climate change in Australian tourism, with a focus on low-carbon initiatives promoted to tourism operators by state and territory government tourism agencies. The paper compares the climate change initiatives of these tourism agencies based on six key dimensions of governance including: accountability, transparency, involvement, structure, effectiveness, and power [Ruhanen, L., Scott, N., Ritchie, B., & Tkaczynski, A. (2010). Governance: A review and synthesis of the literature. Tourism Review, 65(4), 4–16]. While most state and territory tourism agencies provided resources on climate change initiatives for tourism operators there was little accountability for emissions reduction within the agency. Collaborative governance of climate change was also more developed in states with climate change policies, destinations vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (e.g. Great Barrier Reef, Queensland), or dependent on long-haul travellers. Further research is needed on the governance and effective delivery of carbon emissions reduction programmes by tourism agencies.     

Integrated vulnerability assessment of ecotourism to climate change in Dana Biosphere Reserve,Jordan

Climate change has become a major threat to ecotourism in protected areas. This study aims to assess the vulnerability of the ecotourism system in Dana Biosphere Reserve (DBR), the major ecotourism destination in Jordan, to climate change. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with key informants in DBR to assess climate change-related threats, their influence on natural resources, local communities and ecotourism's activities; and adaptation practices. The results indicate that DBR is highly exposed to multiple climate threats, specifically reduced precipitation, shifts in the rainy season, and increased frequency and intensity of drought. These changes are degrading the environment, shifting tourism seasons, and changing livelihoods and lifestyles of local communities. To mitigate these diverse consequences, DBR implements a range of environmental management, technical, educational and business management policies and practices. However, this vulnerability assessment, which addressed social, economic, and environmental impacts, provides a holistic understanding of the susceptibility of the tourism system to climate change and guidance for facilitating future adaptation.     

Cities, mobility and climate change

Societies gain enormous benefits from travel, as economies have become more globalised and as the new communications infrastructure allows international networking and travel at a low cost. There has been a true internationalisation of all activities, and travel forms an essential part of that process. However, this mobility is fuelled by carbon, and there is clear scientific agreement that carbon emissions are affecting the global climate with irreversible long term consequences. Transport is the one sector where a reduction in energy use and emissions is proving to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve despite some success in urban areas. This paper focuses on cities, mobility and climate change, highlighting recent trends in both developed and developing countries. It is argued that the current situation is unsustainable, and that transport must contribute fully to achieving carbon reduction targets. An alternative is presented, based on the sustainable mobility paradigm (Banister, 2008) that looks at ways to reduce the need to travel in cities. The belief that high mobility and technology provides the solution is misplaced, as technological innovation can only get us part of the way to sustainable transport, and this may facilitate more travel. There are opportunities for cities to switch to low carbon transport futures, where vision and action are based on a combination of economic, planning and technological innovations working in mutually supporting ways. Potentially, the future is bright for low carbon transport in cities, but the real question is whether there is the commitment and leadership to follow such a path.     

Welcome to the Wet Tropics: the importance of weather in reef tourism resilience1

As one of Australia's iconic tourism attractions and one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is an important economic, social and natural resource for Queensland's Tropical North. However, the long-term prognosis for the health of the reef and by implication, the industries dependent on it, is not positive. So far much attention has focussed on the health and resilience of the reef ecosystem, as a foundation for a resilient tourism industry. In this study we explore how weather conditions have affected the reef experiences of 1000 tourists to the Cairns/Port Douglas region, suggesting that this may also be an important indicator of change on the reef. The results suggest that poor weather has a more pronounced effect on experiences than good weather and reinforce the likelihood that seasickness, cold and wet conditions, reduced water visibility, and difficult snorkelling/diving conditions will reduce overall levels of satisfaction. Poor weather was found to have a direct effect on satisfaction scores, the likelihood that reef and tour expectations were not realised, and lowered perceived value for money. These are important considerations for the reef centred tourism industry that is currently facing strong environment pressures from climate change.     

Cycling in a changed climate

The use of bicycle is substantially affected by the weather patterns, which is expected to change in the future as a result of climate change. It is therefore important to understand the resulting potential changes in bicycle flows in order to accommodate adaptation planning for cycling. We propose a framework to model the changes in bicycle flow in London by developing a negative binomial count-data model and by incorporating future projected weather data from downscaled global climate models, a first such approach in this area. High temporal resolution (hourly) of our model allows us to decipher changes not only on an annual basis, but also on a seasonal and daily basis. We find that there will be a modest 0.5% increase in the average annual hourly bicycle flows in London’s network due to a changed climate. The increase is primarily driven by a higher temperature due to a changed climate, although the increase is tempered due to a higher rainfall. The annual average masks the differences of impacts between seasons though – bicycle flows are expected to increase during the summer and winter months (by 1.6%), decrease during the spring (by 2%) and remain nearly unchanged during the autumn. Leisure cycling will be more affected by a changed climate, with an increase of around 7% during the weekend and holiday cycle flows in the summer months.