Transcript Climatic Change - Copernicus.org

Climatic tendencies in Spain and their
impacts on tourism
Peter Domonkos1, Xavier Farré2 and Juan Antonio Duro2
1University
Rovira i Virgili, Centre for Climate Change (C3), Tortosa, Spain, [email protected]
2University Rovira i Virgili, Dept. of Economics, Reus, Spain, [email protected]
Objective
Mediterranean coast, Balearics
and Canaries
The goal of this study is to examine the climatic conditions and their tendencies from the point
of view of their potential impact on tourism in Spain. It is the continuation of our earlier studies
(e.g. Domonkos et al. 2012), in which the most important climatic variables were examined
one-by-one. Here, the joint potential of climatic characteristics is examined with the
construction of a simple tourism - climate index.
Data and Methods
Observed climate data of 12 stations (1951-2011), published by the Spanish Meteorological
Agency, and hotel occupancy data (HN) in Spanish provinces (1999-2010, Spanish National
Institute, Encuesta de Ocupación Hotelera) have been used. The six provinces of the highest
HN for the Mediterranean areas and Canaries and the six provinces of the highest HN for the
interior of the peninsula and Atlantic coast had been selected for the analysis. The selected
climate stations are located in the most important tourists’ destinations of the provinces. The
data has monthly resolution. Climate data had been quality controlled, temperature data quality
controlled and homogenised before their use for the study.
Climate potential for tourism is often evaluated with tourism-climate indices (e.g. Amelung
and Moreno, 2012), which consider the joint effect of various climatic factors. We have chosen
to apply a simple index, because we have tourism data only for provinces (instead of specific
sites), and the dataset we can use also has other limitations. Following the idea of EugenioMartin and Campos-Soria (2010) we introduce the simplified tourism climate index (TCS),
which evaluates jointly the temperature, precipitation and wind climate. TCS shows the number
of months in years for which the climatic conditions are favourable for tourism. Our definition
(below) differs from that of Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria (2010) in two details, there we
will show further references.
A month is favourable for tourism if each of the following conditions is satisfied:
i) mean temperature is at least 15°C;
ii) mean of daily maximum temperatures is lower than 30.5°C (Maddison, 2001);
iii) mean wind speed is lower than 8 m/s (Ibarra, 2011);
iv) number of rainy days ≤ 10, or the monthly precipitation total < 60 mm.
province
HN
TCS
province
HN
TCS
Balearics
44.5
4.4
Madrid
6.86
2.9
Canaries
34.0
6.8
Sevilla
1.89
3.8
Barcelona
13.2
5.4
Granada
1.66
2.8
Malaga
10.1
5.8
Vizcaya
0.94
1.3
Girona
7.7
4.2
Coruña
0.60
3.0
Alicante
7.2
6.3
Cordoba
0.44
2.9
Table 1. Million hotel nights (annual mean) of foreign visitors (HN) and simplified
tourism climate index (TCS) for twelve Spanish provinces, 1999-2010. Note
that two provinces of small areas were unified for Canaries (St. Cruz de
Tenerife and Las Palmas) and Vizcaya (Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya).
Conclusions
•
Climate in Spain is generally favourable for tourism and it is
particularly favourable in the Mediterranean areas and in the
Canaries.
Climate is not always a decisive factor in tourists’
destination choice.
Climate has warmed in Spain in the last 60 years, but slight
heat stress can be favourable for beach tourism and summer
tourism is still increasing in the Mediterranean provinces.
The maintenance of high quality services for the growing
number of tourists under the changing climate will be a
challenge for the tourism management.
Results and Discussion
•
Table 1 shows the mean HN of foreign visitors and TCS for the twelve Spanish provinces
between 1999-2010. It is striking from the table that although cultural tourism is important in
Spain, beach tourism is overwhelmingly dominant. The variation of HN according to provinces
is high due to the differences in the attractiveness of tourist destinations.
Table 1 shows that the climate of Spain is generally favourable for tourism at least in some
parts of the year, since TCS is usually around or above 3. The climatic potential is particularly
good in the Mediterranean regions and Canaries where TCS reaches 4-7. On the other hand,
climate is not always a decisive factor and for instance the frequent rainy weather of San
Sebastian (Vizcaya-Guipuzcoa) does not deter visitors. Note that in Canaries the unfavourable
weather is rare throughout the year, except the frequent strong winds predominantly in summer.
In the further analysis the tourism - climate relation is examined with the data for the
provinces of Table 1. Fig. 1 shows the variation of TCS between 1951-2011. Canaries was
omitted from this calculation due to its specific climate. Fig. 1 shows that TCS has slightly
decreased in the Mediterranean areas, but slightly increased in the other provinces. The trends
are not significant statistically, which fact indicates that the recent warming has not been
significant effect on the climatic potential for tourism in Spain.
Midsummer (July and August) temperatures tend to be higher than the optimum in the
Mediterranean regions and Canaries, Fig. 2 shows their variation between 1951-2011.
Midsummer temperatures rose particularly between 1970 and 1990 and the rising trend for the
entire period examined is statistically significant in each province. In the recent decade,
midsummer temperatures were often 1.5-2.0°C higher than 50-60 years ago and they are
clearly higher than the optimum of tourists’ demand (around 23°C, Lise and Tol, 2002). Yet
July and August is still the most preferred season of beach tourism (Fig. 3), although the
sharpness of midsummer peak is very different according to provinces. The fact is that beach
tourism in July and August is still growing in Spain and with higher rate than in other seasons
or the other branches of tourism (Domonkos et al. 2012). This increase indicates that slight
heat stress is definitely favourable for beach tourism, particularly for hotel tourism, since
Spanish hotels are generally air conditioned.
Summarising, Spain can remain an attractive tourist destination in warming climate, but the
maintenance of high quality services for the growing number of tourists under the changing
climate will be a challenge for the tourism management.
TCS
•
•
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the Spanish project “Tourism, Environment
and Politics” ECO 2010-18158.
References
Amelung, B. and Moreno, A. (2012) Costing the impact of climate change on tourism in
Europe: results of the PESETA project. Climatic Change, 112, 83-100.
Domonkos, P., Farré, X. and Duro, J.A. (2012) Climate impacts on tourism in Spain.
Publications of the Asociación Española de Climatología, Serie A, nº 8., Salamanca,
ISBN: 978-84-695-4331-3, p. 767-774.
Ibarra, E.M. (2011) The use of webcam images to determine tourist-climate aptitude: favourable
weather types for sun and beach tourism on the Alicante coast (Spain). Int. J. Biometeorol.,
55, 373-385.
Lise, W. and Tol, R.S.J. (2002) Impact of climate on tourist demand. Climatic Change, 55,
429-449.
Maddison, D. (2001) In search of warmer climate? The impact of climate change on flows of
British tourists. Climatic Change, 49, 193-208.
105 HN
T(°C)
12
30
90
80
28
10
Interior of the peninsula and
Atlantic coast
70
8
26
60
24
50
6
40
22
4
2
0
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
Figure 1. Simplified tourism climate index (TCS) for the
Mediterranean coast and Balearics (blue), and for the
interior of peninsula and Atlantic coast (brown).
2011
30
20
20
18
1951
10
1961
1971
Balearics
Malaga
1981
Canaries
Girona
1991
2001
Barcelona
Alicante
Figure 2. Variation of mean midsummer temperature (July
and August) in the Mediterranean provinces and
Canaries, 1951-2011.
2011
0
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Balearics Canaries Barcelona Malaga
Figure 3. Seasonal cycle of hotel occupation by foreign
visitors (HN) in three Mediterranean provinces and
Canaries, 1999-2010.