Tourism, Recreation and Climate Change: 22 (Aspects of Tourism) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1845410041 ISBN 13: 9781845410049

Publisher: Channel View Publications, 2005

Synopsis

Climate change is one of the major issues facing us today and has been described as a threat greater than terrorism. As the world's largest industry tourism both contributes to and will be dramatically affected by climate change. This is the first comprehensive book-level examination of the relationship between tourism and climate change, of interest not only to students of tourism but to policy makers and the industry who will have to respond to the challenges posed.

About this title

About the Authors

C. Michael Hall is a professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His recent book publications include Contemporary Tourism (with C. Cooper, 5th edn, Goodfellow, 2022) and Sense of Place and Place Attachment in Tourism (with N.C. Chen & G. Prayag, Routledge, 2023).

James Higham is a professor in the Otago Business School (University of Otago). His research addresses tourism and global environmental change, with a particular interest in global aviation emissions and decarbonising tourism. He is the Co-Director of the University of Otago Tourism Policy School (2019-2022) and has served as the Co-Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (2014-2022).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tourism, Recreation and Climate Change

By C. Michael Hall, James Higham

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2005 C. Michael Hall, James Higham and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84541-004-9

Contents

List of Contributors, 
Preface, 
Part 1: Context, 
1 Introduction: Tourism, Recreation and Climate Change C. Michael Hall and James Higham, 
2 The Climate-Tourism Relationship and its Relevance to Climate Change Impact Assessment C.R. de Freitas, 
3 The Evolution of the Climate Change Issue in the Tourism Sector Daniel Scott, Geoff Wall and Geoff McBoyle, 
Part 2: The Effects of Climate Change on Tourist Flows and Recreation Patterns, 
4 Climate and Policy Changes: Their Implications for International Tourism Flows Sue Mather, David Viner and Graham Todd, 
5 The Mediterranean: How Can the World's Most Popular and Successful Tourist Destination Adapt to a Changing Climate? Allen Perry, 
6 Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Tourism under the Light of Equity Issues Ghislain Dubois and Jean-Paul Ceron, 
7 Climate Change and Tourism and Recreation in North America: Exploring Regional Risks and Opportunities Daniel Scott, Geoff Wall and Geoff McBoyle, 
8 Nature Tourism and Climatic Change in Southern Africa R.A. Preston-Whyte and H.K. Watson, 
9 Changing Snow Cover and Winter Tourism and Recreation in the Scottish Highlands S.J. Harrison, S.J. Winterbottom and R.C. Johnson, 
10 Climate Change and Tourism in the Swiss Alps Rolf Bürki, Hans Elsasser, Bruno Abegg and Urs Koenig, 
11 Effects of Climate Change on Tourism Demand and Benefits in Alpine Areas Robert B. Richardson and John B. Loomis, 
12 Implications of Climate Change on Tourism in Oceania Stephen Craig-Smith and Lisa Ruhanen, 
13 Tourism, Fossil Fuel Consumption and the Impact on the Global Climate Susanne Becken and David G. Simmons, 
Part 3: Adaptation and Response: Managing the Relationship Between Tourism, Recreation and Global Climate Change, 
14 Tourism and Climate Change Adaptation: The Norwegian Case Carlo Aall and Karl G. Høyer, 
15 Tourism and the Ozone Hole: Varying Perceptions L. Michael Trapasso, 
16 'Everyone Talks About the Weather ...' Keith Dewar, 
17 Climate Change, Leisure-related Tourism and Global Transport Paul Peeters, 
18 Sustainable Mobility and Sustainable Tourism Karl G. Høyer and Carlo Aall, 
19 Tourism as Victim, Problem or Solution: Story Lines of a Complex Industry–Environment Relation Lotta Frändberg, 
20 Tourism's Contribution to Global Environmental Change: Space, Energy, Disease, Water Stefan Gössling, 
21 Making Tourism Sustainable: The Real Challenge of Climate Change? James Higham and C. Michael Hall, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Tourism, Recreation and Climate Change

C. MICHAEL HALL AND JAMES HIGHAM

In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism – David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government. (King, 2004: 176) Human-induced changes in the global climate system and in stratospheric ozone pose a range of severe health risks and potentially threaten economic development and social and political stability – Declaration of the Third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, 1999. (WHO, Regional Office for Europe, Global Change and Health, http://www.euro.who.int/globalchange)

It is one of the great truisms that everybody talks about the weather. However, in recent years, interest in the weather has grown as high magnitude storm events, floods, droughts, snowstorms and record high temperatures have become associated with potential changes in the world's climate. For example, the record high temperatures experienced in Europe in the northern hemisphere summer of 2003 focused enormous attention on climate-related issues. Paris experienced the highest night-time temperatures ever recorded on 11 and 12 August (25.5C), and several countries, including Belgium, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, also experienced record temperatures. The heatwave was unusual in that it affected several countries and persisted for at least ten days; in fact the whole northern summer (June, July, August) was much hotter than usual (Schär et al., 2004; see also Perry, Chapter 5, this volume).

In France the Minister for the Elderly admitted that 10,000 people had most likely died because of the heatwave. In the last week of August, President Jacques Chirac addressed the nation saying that weaknesses in the French health system had contributed to these heat-related deaths. Despite similar heatwave conditions in the United Kingdom, with temperatures peaking on 10 August in Bogdale, near Faversham, Kent, where 38.5C (101.3F) was recorded, the British government response was much more low key. However, in October 2003 official figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggested that the death toll in England and Wales as a result of the ten-day heatwave in August 2003 may have been around 2000 people, which was much higher than those admitted at the time. According to the ONS between 4 and 13 August there were 15,187 deaths in England and Wales, 2045 above the average for the previous five years. In commenting on the ONS figures Carvel (2003: 10) said: 'Although the statisticians were not yet able to provide an analysis of the ages of the victims and causes of death, it seemed almost certain that extreme heat was the reason for the higher mortality.' Indeed, more recent preliminary estimates of the impact of the European heatwave on mortality suggest that in England and Wales 2045 or 16% excess deaths occurred, in France 14,802 deaths (60%), Italy 3134 deaths (15%) and Portugal 2099 deaths (26%) (Kovats et al., 2004). While reaction to the heatwave from European governments raised substantial issues regarding government preparedness for such extreme climate events in relation to public health, the forest and scrub fires in Portugal, Spain and France also created a powerful image in the media of the impacts of such heatwaves on the landscape. As Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the Portuguese Prime Minister, stated, 'We are standing before a tragedy which is unprecedented in Portugal in terms of fires ... We are facing an exceptional situation. It's been brought about by absolutely exceptional weather conditions, so we have to respond with exceptional measures' (BBC News, 2003). Arguably, the impacts of the 2003 heatwave on European perceptions of climate were even more stark because of the comparisons that could be made with the floods that affected central Europe the previous year (BBC News, 2002).

Given this kind of context it should therefore be of no great surprise that prospects of climate change have become the focus of media attention as well as substantial scientific debate (e.g. O'Riordan and Jäger, 1996; Houghton, 1997; Jepma & Mohan, 1998; Mendlesohn, 1999; Drake, 2000; Harvey, 2000; Sarewitz & Pielke Jr, 2000; Claussen, 2002; King, 2003). The extent of media coverage of global climate change issues is illustrated in Table 1.1, which shows major stories on climate change reported in the Guardian and Observer newspapers at the end of 2003/beginning of 2004. While undoubtedly highlighting the range of issues associated with global climate change and some of the policy debates that surround them, the newspaper reports also begin to indicate the potential role of the media in influencing the public's perception of places and activities. Not only do the news stories indicate the potential direct impact of climate change on tourism, e.g. the sale of Scottish ski resorts (Seenan, 2004), but also indirect impacts because of changes to resources that are part of tourism product offerings, e.g. coral reef bleaching (Radford, 2004b), species extinction (Brown, 2004a), and changes to seasonal weather patterns (Brown, 2004b; Radford, 2004a). Undoubtedly, tourism will not be the only industry to feel the effects of climate change. However, as one of the main world industries in terms of employment and economic returns, and of particularly importance in a number of developing countries and small island states, any impacts on tourism will have substantial economic, social and political repercussions. Moreover, tourism is arguably even more susceptible to global climate change because of the reliance on the environment in many destinations for their attractiveness, especially in coastal and mountain regions, while outdoor recreation activities are also susceptible to climatic extremes. Tables 1.2 and 1.3 detail the ideal climatic requirements for some outdoor recreation activities.

The size of the international tourism industry is substantial. Preliminary estimates of full year results for 2003, published by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) (2004) indicate that even though the number of international arrivals fell by 1.2% (8.5 million) from the previous year, there were still some 694 million arrivals. With respect to 2004 the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) (2004) forecast that the combined direct and indirect impact of the travel and tourism economy is expected to total 10.4% of the world economy and total 73.7 million jobs or 2.8% of total world employment. The direct and indirect impact of the travel and tourism economy is expected to lead to a total of 214.7 million jobs being dependent on travel and tourism or 8.1% of total employment. An international overview of the economic contribution of tourism undertaken by the WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2003) is shown in Table 1.4.

However, while the numbers provided by the WTO and the WTTC are impressive, they only give a partial perspective of the impacts of tourism. They do not account for the overall direct and indirect costs and benefits, particularly with respect to social and environmental impacts, nor do they provide any assessment of the opportunity costs that might be associated with tourism development. Nevertheless, they do provide an indication of why some governments and industry bodies are now starting to take the relationships between tourism and climate change seriously.

The Interrelationships between Tourism and Climate Change

Given the long awareness of the relationship between climate and tourism (see Paul, 1972; Adams, 1973; Mieczkowski, 1985; Harrison et al., 1986; de Freitas, 1990, 2003, this volume; Smith 1990, 1993; Ewert, 1991; Harlfinger, 1991; Perry, 1997), it is perhaps surprising that an overt focus on the implications of climate change has occurred so recently (see Harrison et al., 1986; Wall et al., 1986; McBoyle & Wall, 1987; Ewert, 1991; Lipski & McBoyle, 1991; Wall, 1993; Wall & Badke, 1994; Agnew & Viner, 2001; Scott et al., Chapter 3, this volume). According to Scott et al. (Chapter 3, this volume), the overall development of tourism and climate research can be categorised into four stages: an initial period of activity in the 1960s and 1970s, which has been labelled the 'formative stage', followed by a decade when very little research was published ('period of stagnation'). The first peer-reviewed journal publications on the implications of climate change for tourism or recreation appeared in the mid-1980s (Harrison et al., 1986; Wall et al., 1986). These publications are regarded as signifying the start of a third phase ('emergence of climate change'), which pre-dated the formation of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by two years. The final era is labelled 'maturation' reflecting the tremendous growth in the volume of research since the end of the 1990s and which is detailed in many of the chapters in the present volume. Arguably, the relative lack of interaction between climate and tourism research, until recently, may relate to the time period in which governments have started to pay attention to climate change issues. However, several other factors may be considered including:

• the overall perception of tourism and recreation as a 'serious' area of study in the physical and social sciences;

• the relative lack of interaction between physical and social sciences with respect to impact analysis;

• lack of institutional support in the financing of such research;

• relative lack of baseline data;

• methodological difficulties in undertaking relevant analysis; and

• diversion into other, more attractive, areas of research.

Scott (2003; see also Scott et al., Chapter 3, this volume) also suggested that one possible explanation for the lack of research on the tourism– climate relationship is that a resource management perspective is almost absent from tourism discourse. However, in contrast Hall and Page (2002) identified such a resource management approach as a significant theme in tourism and recreation research, at least with respect to geography and geographers. Pigram and Jenkins (1999) have similarly recognised a resource management approach in the context of outdoor recreation. Arguably, of far more significance is the scale at which research on tourism impacts has occurred and the means by which tourism has been conceptualised.

Most research on tourism impacts has tended to occur at the destination. This has meant that research has often focused on local factors rather than trying to incorporate all stages of the travel process (the tourism generating region, travel to and from the destination, and the destination itself) and their occurrence over time and space. Conceptualising tourism in terms of wider aspects of human mobility therefore has considerable importance with respect to assessing the complete impacts of tourism (Høyer, 2000; Gössling, 2002, Chapter 20, this volume; Gössling et al., 2002; Hall & Williams, 2002; Frändberg & Vilhelmson, 2003; Hall 2003a, 2004, 2005; Coles et al., 2004; Hall & Müller, 2004). Therefore, the study of tourism must be willing to formulate a coherent approach to understanding the meaning behind the range of mobilities undertaken by individuals, not just 'tourists' (Coles et al., 2004). People's travel time budgets have not changed substantially over time, but the ability to travel further at a lower per unit cost within a given time budget (Schafer, 2000) has led to a new series of social interactions and patterns of leisure production and consumption which are often discussed under the heading of tourism but, arguably, are perhaps better dealt with under the overall rubric of mobility. Assessment of the relationship between tourism and climate change therefore needs to be undertaken over the totality of the tourism consumption and production system, particularly with respect to transport impacts, rather than just specific elements of the tourism system, as significant as they might be.

Figure 1.1 illustrates some of the interrelationships between the tourism system and climate change. All demand and supply facets of tourism are regarded as being affected by global climate change, but just as importantly tourism has direct and indirect affects on climate change itself. In addition, tourism is impacted by other factors that influence global and local change, such as processes of political, economic and cultural globalisation, technology, especially information technology, mega-urbanisation, and environmental change (Johnston et al., 1995), processes which themselves interact with global climate change in ways that we are only beginning to identify. Within the tourism generating regions climate change affects the tourism decision-making process in a number of different ways. Climate change can directly impact tourist behaviour because of changed perceptions not only of the climatic appeal and image of certain destinations but also the activities that can be engaged in. Moreover, climate change may impact patterns of seasonal attraction and associated visitor flows. At a broad scale of analysis climate change will likely mean not that people will stop travelling but that they will change their travel preferences in both space and time. Nevertheless, such shifts assume that economic, social, regulatory and environmental conditions at the generating region stay relatively constant, unfortunately, it is likely that this will not be the case in many areas, particularly with respect to impacts on agricultural and manufacturing production as well as the location of human settlements (IPCC, 1990, 1996, 2001).

Under conditions of rapid human-induced global climate change, tourist flows as well as other human mobility patterns will undoubtedly shift in both space and time. Indeed, the question of will the Mediterranean become too hot for summer holidays has already been posed (Whitfield, 2003; Mather et al., Chapter 4, this volume; Perry, Chapter 5, this volume). Changes in overall mobility patterns will be a result of new destinations and activity locations developing, while at the same time some existing destinations will cease to be as attractive (in some extreme cases, some coastal and island destinations may even disappear), with some transport routes potentially bypassing current destinations as new time and economic budgets develop in the tourist market. The energy demands of tourism transport will undoubtedly be a focal point for new regulatory structures that may act to restrict long-distance travel in particular. Gössling et al.'s (2002) study of the ecological footprint of travellers to the Seychelles revealed that the major environmental impact of travel was a result of transportation to and from the destination: more than 97% of the energy footprint was a result of air travel. This suggests that efforts to make destinations more sustainable through local energy initiatives

can only contribute to marginal savings in view of the large amounts of energy used for air travel. Any strategy towards sustainable tourism must thus seek to reduce transport distances, and, vice versa, any tourism based on air traffic needs per se to be seen as unsustainable. Obviously, these insights also apply to ecotourism based on long-distance travel. (Gössling et al., 2002: 208) (Also see Gössling, Chapter 20, this volume; Høyer & Aall, Chapter 18, this volume)

Nevertheless, this is not to suggest that destination based environmental initiatives are not without value.

New regulatory structures to manage the impacts of global climate change will undoubtedly develop at the national and sub-national level and many of these will impact tourism at the destination level. Natural resource attractions at the species, community and ecosystem level will be particularly affected by climate change. As Root et al. (2003: 57) argue:

The synergism of rapid temperature rise and other stresses, in particular habitat destruction, could easily disrupt the connectedness among species and lead to a reformulation of species communities, reflecting differential changes in species, and to numerous extirpations and possibly extinctions.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Channel View Publications
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845410041
• ISBN 13: 9781845410049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Hall C. Michael, Higham James