Tourism: The Causes And Implications Of Climate Change

LITERATURE REVIEW - OABONA SERETSE

THE CAUSES AND IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Compelling evidence from literature indicates that climate change and tourism have a very close and undeniable relationship. For example a study by (Simpson et al., 2008, p. 12 cited in Rayamajhi 2012) explained that tourism is considered to be a highly climate sensitive economic sector and that climate change is not a remote future event for tourism, as the diverse impacts of a changing climate are even now becoming evident at destinations around the world. Furthermore The World Tourism Organisation (2008) also agrees that indeed climate is a principal resource for tourism, as it co­determines the suitability of locations for a wide range of

Tourism seasons will be altered with possibly more tourists travelling in shoulder seasons, or in winter seasons, as climate will be more appealing (OECD 2008). 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. 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. 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 (OECD 2008). 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