Mediterranean Tourism and Climate (Change): A Survey-Based Study

Abstract

This paper reports on a pilot study of tourists' views on the roles of climate and climate change. Data was collected in 2007 at one Belgian and one Dutch airport among tourists waiting for their flight to a Mediterranean destination (n = 115). Respondents were asked for their preferences on the role of climate in destination choice, the factors that constitute favorable and unfavorable conditions, the relative importance of a range of potential climate change impacts, and the expected implications of climate change for their destination choice. Results confirm the importance of climate as a destination attribute. For beach tourism, the absence of rain is found to be more important than a “comfortable temperature”, while “high temperatures” are considered unfavorable by only a few respondents. This is consistent with the findings that “heat waves” are considered as “not too negative”, and that heat waves are considered the least important climate change impact. “Ideal weather” for beach tourism is associated with temperatures of approximately 28°C, “light breeze”, and a blue sky. If these conditions were to be found in northern European countries as a result of climate change, it would have only a moderate effect on destination choice, with the large majority (72.4%) of respondents stating they would still travel to the Mediterranean for their beach holidays.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lorena Santamarta for helping in the distribution of the questionnaires and data analysis, and Michelle Rutty for proof-reading the text. I am very grateful to the three reviewers for their useful comments that helped improving this manuscript. Finally, this paper has been elaborated under the framework of the Research Project “Evaluación de la vulnerabilidad del turismo litoral del Mediterráneo español al clima y al cambio climático” of the National Plan I + D + I of the Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry (reference CSO2008-01346).

Notes

This question did not include any reference about any change on the Mediterranean, for which more sophisticated research techniques (e.g. conjoint analysis) would be more suitable.