Why is the content of this map important?
Climate and weather patterns are essential factors for summer tourism activities. Changes in temperature, precipitation and other climate variables will affect the popularity of summer tourism destinations. It is important to know how +2 and +3 degrees may affect the summer tourism in the future.
Which sectors are affected by this result?
The results refer to climate change effects on tourism from May to October, thus directly effecting the summer tourism sector. Reader are encouraged to see the respective results about the June to August months that consist the heart of the summer tourism season. TCI June to August
What is shown on the maps?
This map shows the climate favourability for summer tourism through Tourism Climate Index (TCI) for the May to October period. This index is composed of several climatic parameters such as temperature, sunshine duration, wind and others. TCI ranges between 0 and 100, with the optimal to be 90 to 100 (Table 1). In the vast majority of the European regions, climate favourability for summer tourism is expected to increase under 2 and 3 degrees global warming. However, this is the average effect of May to October, meaning that for some regions, this is the net effect of an increase in early and late summer favourability, combined with a loss in the central (June to August) summer period (see link above).
Details and further information:
The TCI is a summary of ratings of five human comfort indices related to sightseeing tourism. TCI is favored as an index because it comprises one of the most comprehensive metrics that integrates the three essential facets of climate that are relevant to tourism. These facets are comprised of: thermal comfort, physical aspects such as rain and wind, and the aesthetical facet of sunshine/cloudiness. At the same time it makes use of climate variables that are commonly available from weather stations or climate models.
Kostas Seiradakis
Technical University of Crete (TUC), Greece