Multidisciplinary and Participatory Approach for Assessing Local Vulnerability of Tourism Industry to Climate Change

Abstract

The major part of the attractiveness of Nordic tourism relies on natural resources and features such as the landscape, the flora, the fauna and the four seasons. Lately, it has been predicted that climate change will alter these preconditions of nature-based tourism destinations, which may have severe consequences for the tourism industry. Nevertheless, tourism is also bound to many other societal changes that may influence the economics and the development of peripheral communities dependent on tourism and bring new challenges in maintaining their vitality. For assessing these challenges and potential adaptation measures a multidisciplinary and participatory approach was developed in the EU LIFE+ project VACCIA (Vulnerability Assessment of ecosystem services for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation) Action 12: Tourism. The aim of this article is to evaluate this approach for assessing the local vulnerability and adaptation of tourism to the challenges of climate change in two tourism municipalities of Northern Finland.

Key Words:

• climate change
• vulnerability assessment
• adaptation
• tourism
• Northern Finland

Acknowledgements

The LIFE+ instrument of the EU is acknowledged for financial support for the VACCIA project (project LIFE07 ENV/FIN/141). This paper was finalised with the support of the CLICHE (Impacts of Climate Change on Arctic Environment, Ecosystem Services and Society 2011–2015) project funded by the Academy of Finland under the Finnish Climate Change Adaptation programme, the DILACOMI (DIfferent Land-use Activities and local COmmunities in MIning projects) project funded by TEKES, and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The Oulanka Research Station of Thule Institute and Jouko Inkeröinen are also acknowledged for their administrative and infrastructural support as well as Dr. Kirsti Jylhä and the Finnish Meteorological Institute for providing climate data and scenarios. The authors would like to thank all the researchers and students of the VACCIA research team and all the local actors who have participated in the surveys, questionnaires and workshops in Kuusamo and Sotkamo. Finally, the authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their comments.