Tourism

Tourism is closely linked to climate. Not only is good weather desirable whilst on holiday or taking part in a outdoor recreational activity, but often the climate dictates where an activity can take place e.g. skiing.

Favourable weather conditions for tourism are expected to improve in northern and western Europe. The IPCC indicate that an arbitrary climate change scenario of 1°C would lead to a gradual shift of tourist destinations further north and up mountains affecting the preferences of sun and beach lovers from western and northern Europe.

However the ski industry in central Europe (even as north as Lapland) is likely to be disrupted by significant reductions in natural snow cover especially at the beginning and end of the ski season, and a 1°C rise could lead to four fewer weeks of skiing days in winter and six fewer weeks in spring.

A variety of adaptation measures are available to the tourism industry, both to take advantages of the opportunities and to adapt to the negatives.

Regarding winter tourism, compensating for reduced snowfall by artificial snowmaking is already common practice for coping with year to year snow pack variability in many larger resorts. However, this adaptation strategy is likely to be economic only in the short term, or in the case of very high elevation resorts in mountain regions, and may be ecologically undesirable. New leisure industries, such as grass skiing or hiking could compensate for any income decrease experienced by the ski industry due to snow deterioration. Providing a responsive and integrated tourism industry in a weather dependant resort may be one solution when faced with the uncertainty of climate change. Another adaptive measure for European tourism, in general, is promoting new forms of tourism such as eco-tourism or cultural tourism and placing greater emphasis on man-made rather than natural attractions, which are less sensitive to weather conditions.

More tourists coming to or staying in the north will mean an adaptation of the infrastructure to cope with an increase in numbers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Greenland, where the recent trend for ‘climate change tourism’ (visitors wanting to see climate change at first hand) has rapidly increased the number of people visiting the region, and particularly the ice cap, that the infrastructure and the local knowledge and awareness for accommodating tourists is not yet in place.

Clim-ATIC will be looking at the impacts of climate change on tourism, particularly winter tourism, in three regions of northern Europe; Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, Åre in Sweden, and in Finnish Lapland: Rovaniemi town, ski resorts Levi in Kittilä municipality and ski resort Ylläs in Kolari municipality. In addition in Greenland, Kangerlussuaq , Uummannak and Ilulissat municipalities are in partnership with ARTEK in an adaptation project to develop a new lightweight and sustainable tourist hut that can accommodate larger numbers of tourists to a region, but can easily be moved as and when required to more favourable locations, either because of seasonal changes in weather or as the ‘must see’ ice cap retreats further away from permanent facilities.

References

Further reading

Project coordinator: UHI Millennium Institute,  Perth College, Crieff Road, Perth, Scotland (UK), PH1 2NX  Tel: (+)44 1738 877204 • Fax: (+)44 1738 877018 • clive.bowman@perth.uhi.ac.uk