Global (environmental) change and tourism: issues of scale and distribution
Bas Amelung, 31 March 2006

Many factors have contributed to the rapid growth of tourism over the past decades. Tourism has many attractive sides, but it also causes a few difficult problems, which are often related to scale and concentration. Tourism is commonly expected to grow further, but the rate and nature of this growth are very uncertain as a result of the many factors that play a role. With the help of scenarios, this thesis explores a number of possible futures for tourism, which differ considerably in terms of growth rates in developing countries and the distribution of tourism over space and time.

Climate change is emerging as an important determinant of tourism patterns all around the world. In the thesis, the current and future climatic suitabilities of regions and seasons is explored by applying the Tourism Climatic Index (TCI) to grid-based climate datasets. The analyses reveal a poleward shift of climates that are attractive for tourism purposes. Conditions deteriorate year-round in the tropics, and improve year-round in the higher-latitude areas. In the regions in between, there are marked seasonal changes. For example, the number one region for international tourism, the Mediterranean, will face deteriorating conditions in summer and improving conditions in spring and autumn. Whether holidaymakers will decide to visit the Mediterranean in another season than summer, or to spend their summer holidays elsewhere depends on institutional developments. Tourism and recreation in the Netherlands will benefit from climate change, even though the coastal zone is vulnerable to sea level rise.

Tourism is not only affected by climate change, it is also a major contributor to radiative forcing. The bulk of tourism-related emissions and forcing is related to transport, in particular aviation. Aviation is growing at a fast pace, among other things because of the relatively low costs. Aviation currently enojoys considerable tax exemptions, but these are under increasing pressure, as a result of its large negative impact on well-being, health and the environment. This thesis shows that the introduction of a fuel levy on kerosene and a VAT tax on tickets would push up prices of air travel, and might even cause a discontinuity in tourism development.

Structured research into the links between global environmental change and tourism is in its early stages of development, but it is a very promising area for further research. Because of the importance of seasonality and place in both tourism and climate, higher-resolution temporal and spatial data are required than commonly collected for tourism at the moment. GIS techniques offer promising opportunities for combining information about the determinants of spatial and temporal tourism patterns in a meaningful way.