Consumer behaviour and demand response of tourists to climate change more

The influence of climate change on tourism demand patterns will be shaped by the response of tourists to the complexity of mitigation policy and its impacts on transportation systems, the wide range of climate change impacts on destinations, as well as broader impacts on society and economic development. Tourists have the largest adaptive capacity of elements within the tourism system because of their flexibility to substitute the place, timing and type of holiday, even at very short notice. Consequently, understanding tourist perceptions and reactions to the impacts of climate change is essential to anticipating the potential geographic and seasonal shifts in tourism demand, as well as the decline or increase of specific tourism markets. Yet, despite a wide range of publications assessing reactions of tourists to various environmental and climate-related changes, little is actually known about the complexity of demand responses. The paper reviews and discusses existing studies, and provides a framework for a better understanding of perceptions of change, as well as identifying major current uncertainties and research needs.

Keywords: behaviour, climate change, demand responses, perceptions, travel motivation.


[For those interested a number of the issues raised in this paper are enlarged upon and dealt with in more depth in Scott, D., Hall, C.M. & Gössling, S. (2012) Tourism and Climate Change, Routledge, London.]