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A climate adaptation toolkit for tourism destinations

To sustain their tourism economy in the long term, it is critical for destinations to take the projected impact of climate change into account when planning – and to build adaptation into their business strategies.

A climate adaptation toolkit for tourism destinations

All tourism destinations are vulnerable to climate change. However, for countries whose destinations rely heavily on natural resources, the potential economic disruption from climate-driven change impacting negatively on visitor consumption is a serious concern. To sustain their tourism economy in the long term, it is critical for destinations to take the projected impact of climate change into account when planning – and to build adaptation into their business strategies.

This research forecasts climate data to 2060 accessible to industry and government stakeholders in the form of a Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit. This will be in the form of a set of bespoke recommendations to allow destinations to plan future product portfolios depending on projected climactic conditions to 2060. The key to the success of this proposal lies in its engagement with industry and government stakeholders. By building on previous work by the applicants in Croatia, it will involve working with a set of tourism stakeholders who already have been engaged in the project. The project uses the Croatia region of Gorski Kotar as the case study.

The toolkit will provide recommendations to all those involved in tourism at the destination to help navigate the impacts of projected climate change on the destination. There are three phases to the project:

  1. Desk research / modelling of climate change impacts and creation of future climate scenarios to 2050
  2. Workshop with stakeholders from the Gorski Kotar region in June 2021
  3. Development and delivery of toolkit

The project has the cooperation of an Italian computer modeller based in Italy. The modelling is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s global model of climate change. By examining how the future climate scenarios can support various forms of tourism, destinations will be able to plan how to adapt to changing climate conditions. The results of the modelling will form the basis of the Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit. This is based on the ‘tourism climate index’ which calculates which tourism products will be suitable and supported by the climate scenarios to 2050 at the destination. The purpose of the workshops is to engage with the tourism sector to judge their understanding and acceptance of a climate change adaptation toolkit.

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