1.1
Tourism
Key messages

Climatic suitability for general tourism activities is currently best in southern Europe. The regions
most favourable for general tourism are projected to shift northwards as a result of climate
change. The touristic attractiveness in northern and central Europe would increase in most
seasons. Suitability of southern Europe for tourism would decline markedly during the key
summer months but improves in other seasons.

The widespread reductions in snow cover projected over the 21st century will negatively affect
the winter sports industry in many regions. Regions close to the low elevation limit for winter
sport are most sensitive to the projected warming.

The projected climatic changes are expected to shift the major flows of tourism in Europe and can
have substantial consequences for regions where tourism is an important economic sector. The
magnitude of the economic impacts is strongly determined by non-climatic factors, such as the
ability of tourists to adjust the timing of their holidays.
1.1.1
Overview
The tourism sector accounts for approximately 5 % of the total workforce in Europe. In total, the
European tourism industry generates more than 5 % of EU GDP, and this figure has been steadily
rising (ECORYS, 2009). The Mediterranean region is the world’s most popular holiday destination. It
attracts some 120 million visitors from northern Europe each year, the largest international flow of
tourists on the globe, and while there they spend more than EUR 100 billion each year (Amelung and
Moreno, 2009). International tourism is estimated to contribute about 10 % of GDP and employment
in countries around the Mediterranean Sea (Magnan et al., 2012). In popular tourist regions in Greece,
Spain, France, Italy and Portugal both the share of GDP and employment is far above these values.
In Europe tourism shows a strong seasonality, with a peak in the summer season (July–September)
and generally lower levels of activity in the winter season (October–March). Climate both in tourism
source and destination regions is an important resource for many types of summer and winter tourism,
and it is a key factor for the provenance of tourists and their destination. There are large regional
differences within Europe and among seasons as to attractiveness for tourism. At present, the
predominant tourist flows in summer are from north to south, in particular to the coastal zone.
The knowledge base on climate change and tourism in Europe is continuously being expanded, for
example through research projects or European Territorial Cooperation projects, such as AdaptAlp
(‘Adaptation in the Alpine Arc’), ClimAlpTour (‘Climate Change and its impact on tourism in the
Alpine Space’), CLISP (‘Climate Change Adaptation by Spatial Planning in the Alpine Space’),
BaltAdapt (‘Adaptation in the Baltic Sea region’), ACCESS (‘Arctic Climate Change, Economy and
Society’) and ESPON Climate (see Section Error! Reference source not found.). These projects
strengthen the information available to stakeholders, for example by analysing case studies and
developing tools supporting policy and decision-making. More information about these projects is
available on the European Climate Adaptation Platform (1).
There are obviously different types of tourism activities depending, amongst others, on the location,
season and personal preferences. This section distinguishes between ‘general (summer) tourism’
(based largely on the Tourism Climatic Index (TCI)) and ‘winter sport tourism’ (based largely on
Greiving et al., 2011; Davoudi et al., 2012). None of the information is presented as an EEA
indicator.
1
Climate-ADAPT (http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/).
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1.1.2
General tourism
An important foundation for many recent studies on the relationship between climate and tourism was
the development of the TCI. This index is a composite measure for systematically assessing the
climatic elements that are most relevant to the quality of the tourism experience for the ‘average’
summer tourist. It uses a weighted aggregate of several climate variables (i.e. maximum and mean
daily temperature, humidity, precipitation, sunshine and wind) to assess human comfort for general
outdoor activities. The TCI has been partly validated for the Mediterranean countries. Tourism
activities calling for specific climate conditions are not specifically covered by the ‘standard’ TCI.
Changes in the TCI are used in several new studies that investigate climate change effects on tourism
(Amelung and Moreno, 2009, 2011; Ciscar et al., 2009). Map Error! No text of specified style in
document..1 compares the TCI for baseline and projected future climate conditions in Europe in all
seasons. According to these maps, climate resources in the reference period are generally best in
southern Europe (left column). Over this century, climate change is projected to shift the latitudinal
band of favourable climate northward, thereby improving climate resources in northern and central
Europe in most seasons (central column). Southern Europe’s tourism suitability drops strikingly in the
summer holiday months; this drop is partially compensated for by improvements in other seasons
(right column). Further detailed analysis of the change in the number of acceptable, good and
excellent days per month for eight European regions is available in the original study (Perch-Nielsen
et al., 2010).
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Map Error! No text of specified style in document..1 Projected changes in the tourism
climatic index for the four seasons
Note:
Tourism Climatic Index (TCI) for four seasons in the present period (1961–1990, left), under future
climate change (2071–2100, middle), and change between present and future period (left). Future
climate conditions are based on the SRES A2 scenario and derived from the ensemble mean of five
regional climate models (RCMs) that participated in the PRUDENCE project.
Source: (Perch-Nielsen et al., 2010), reprinted with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media
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The projected decline in the suitability of the Mediterranean for tourism during the key summer
months could trigger shifts in the major flows of tourism within the EU and have important socioeconomic consequences for regions where tourism is a key contributor to the economy. The economic
effects of climate change on tourism depend very much on the question whether holiday seasons in
Europe remain fixed or would possibly shift. With a more flexible timing of travelling, climate
change could benefit the tourist industry in the Mediterranean by evening out demand, reducing the
summer peak while increasing occupancy in the spring and autumn, which become climatically more
suitable. Without such adjustments, however, the Mediterranean tourist industry is projected to be
strongly negatively affected by climate change.
The CIRCE project (‘Climate Change and Impact Research: the Mediterranean Environment’)
addressed to some extent the vulnerability of coastal tourism in the south of Europe (Magnan et al.,
2012). The findings suggest that projected climate change would decrease tourism flows from north to
south of Europe and increase flows within the north of Europe. Another study used a survey to elicit
the climatic preferences for summer tourism of 10 beach and urban destinations to the Mediterranean
of potential travellers from northern Europe (Rutty and Scott, 2010). The study suggests that only in
the medium (2046–2065) and long term (2080–2099) would destinations gradually become
‘unacceptably hot’ during the peak summer months for this target group. It also indicates that in the
long term there is the potential for a much longer warm weather tourism season as the selected
destinations would no longer be considered as ‘unacceptably cool’ during the Mediterranean’s current
shoulder season of spring and autumn.
It is important to note that several factors, which are difficult to model, might alter these general
findings. The combination of adverse circumstances could play a crucial role in shifting future
touristic destinations and seasonality patterns. A plausible example could be summer heat waves in
the Mediterranean exacerbated by water supply problems due to maximum demand coinciding with
minimum resources availability. Changes in urban tourism patterns might also have a knock-on effect
on summer and beach tourism. There might also be a shift towards a greater level of domestic tourism
in regions with increasing attractiveness. Finally, the European tourism industry is also highly
sensitive to the economic situation in Europe and globally.
Water supply problems in tourist resorts are becoming increasingly common in Europe. For example,
the Aegean islands are subject to more than 15 million overnight stays per year and on some islands
the summer population is 30 times greater than the winter population. Demand for water has risen
markedly and is now met through water importation from the mainland by tanker, and desalination
(Gikas and Tchobanoglous, 2009). These problems would be exacerbated in a future climate with
hotter and longer summers.
1.1.3
Winter sport tourism
The winter sports industry across Europe attracts millions of tourists each year, generating nearly
EUR 50 billion in annual turnover. The main winter sport destination in Europe is the Alps where
69 % of Alpine ski areas in Germany, 87 % in Austria, 93 % in Italy and 97 % in France and
Switzerland can be considered as naturally snow-reliable under the present climate (Agrawala, 2007).
Warm winters have already affected Alpine winter tourism. For example, in the record warm winter
2006/2007, some low-altitude ski areas in Austria were not able to offer a continuous skiing season
from December to April despite being equipped with artificial snow-making (Steiger, 2011).
The widespread reductions in snow cover projected over the 21st century (see Subsection Error!
Reference source not found.) will affect snow reliability and consequently the length of the ski
season. Substantial reductions of naturally snow-reliable ski areas have been projected for the Alps,
for the Black Forest region in Germany and for Sweden (Agrawala, 2007; Moen and Fredman, 2007;
Endler and Matzarakis, 2011). Low-lying ski areas are most sensitive to climate change. Studies have
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estimated that an increase of mean temperatures of 1 °C in low-lying regions in the Alps will reduce
the skiing season by up to 6 weeks (Hantel et al., 2000; Beniston et al., 2007).
Artificial snow-making is still the main adaptation option, covering 38 % of the total skiing area in the
European Alps and showing an increase by 48 % since 2004 (Agrawala, 2007; Rixen et al., 2011).
However, there are both environmental and economic constraints to an expansion of artificial snowmaking.
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