Effects of climate change on international tourism

Abstract

We present a simulation model of the flow of tourists between 207 countries, used to study the impact of climate change on international tourism. The model almost perfectly reproduces the calibration year 1995, and performs well in reproducing the observations for 1980, 1985 and 1990. The model is used to generate scenarios of international tourist departures and arrivals for the period 2000-2075, with particular emphasis on climate change; we report variations on a single baseline scenario (A1B). The growth rate of international tourism is projected to increase over the coming decades, but may slow down later in the century, as demand for travel saturates. Emissions of carbon dioxide would increase quickly as well. With climate change, preferred destinations would shift to higher latitudes and altitudes. Tourists from temperate climates would spend more holidays in their home countries. As such tourists currently dominate the international tourism market, climate change would decrease worldwide tourism. Nevertheless, its effects are small compared to the baseline projections of population and economic growth. © Inter-Research 2005.