ECOCLUB, Issue 95
17
Tourism is a continuously adapting industry, responding to changing demographic and economic conditions as well as to new
demands and technologies. Climate change will present new challenges but also lead to opportunities for tourist investment to
capitalise on the new environmental conditions. Work has only just begun on “translating” the suggested future climate
scenarios into their impacts on tourism but already some interesting adaptations are emerging. There follows a mixture of
observed adaptations and speculative predictions:-
1
Higher air and sea temperatures are likely to encourage a longer tourist season. If the summer becomes widely
perceived as too hot the season could become “doughnut shaped”, with peaks in spring and autumn months and a hole in high
summer. Such a pattern might resemble the current profile of visitor demand for a resort like Dubai. Recently Maddison (2001)
has indicated that a lengthening and flattening of the tourist season is likely in Greece although with overall tourist numbers
almost unchanged. With this in mind, resorts need to discourage a “closing down” attitude at the end of summer. Higher
temperatures will allow a prolongation of the season and if possible added cultural and sporting attractions such as arts festivals,
regattas, food or drink events and local fiestas can help this process. Breaking the traditional seasonal pattern has as much to do
with changing consumer attitudes as with developing new attractions and more targeted advertising could help in this respect. A
longer tourist season would allow quicker returns on investment with more intensive utilization of facilities over a longer period.
What in the UK is called the short-haul beach package has almost certainly peaked, but beach holidays will still be popular.
They will be price-sensitive and probably booked later and we are likely to see greater segregation between resorts which
continue to cater for this market and those which choose to chase other markets and become more diversified. Some parts
particularly of the Spanish coasts, have an inheritance of many 30 year old hotels, devoid of modern amenities and catering for a
declining number of holiday-makers, many of whom will be low-spending, low-yielding Eastern European tourists. The demand
will be for more individual “bespoke packages” offering a little more excitement than the “identikit” traditional IT (Middleton
1991).
2
The increasing proportion of older people in the population will still wish to escape the dark, dreary winters of northern
Europe. More are likely to consider moving permanently to, or buying second homes in Mediterranean areas. King, Warnes and
Williams (1998) have shown that in several retirement destinations including the Costa del Sol and Malta the most important
reason given for moving to the chosen destination was climate. Thus the climate of the receiving region for these migrants has
been considered to be the most important pull factor. There are considerable planning implications if the growth of new
apartments, villas and bungalows is not to cause environmental blight in some of these coastal areas. Along with this
development will come increased demand for leisure pursuits e.g. golf courses, marinas.
Tourists will increasingly expect holiday accommodation to be air conditioned. Such accommodation will attract a premium
price, whilst poorer quality self-catering apartments and rooms without air conditioning will be much less attractive in the
summer. At present only a fifth of rooms in hotels in Mediterranean countries are in the 4 and 5 star categories. Increased
demands will be made on electricity supplies from the demand for additional cooling systems
CONCLUSIONS
-
Tourism in the Mediterranean may become less sustainable as a result of climate change. Issues that are
coming to the foreground include what are the safe and tolerable limits of the Mediterranean climate to sustain tourism? What is
the likelihood that these limits will be breeched and at what time? Predicting climate change is complex but even more complex
is predicting how people will respond to that change. Socio-economic scenario analysis is now being used to study possible
future pathways of tourism and their regional implications (Amelung, et al 2003). Significant climate change could occur within
the lifetime of many current tourist investment projects like large- scale marinas. Advice on how to construct tourist facilities in
harmony with the local climate and to provide the least stress to users is needed. At present we can see the following hierarchy
of flexibility to climate change; namely tourists are most flexible, tour operators have a degree of short-term flexibility e.g.
altering flight destinations, and local tourist managers are the least flexible with committed capital installed and not always
transportable. It may be that changes in the frequency and intensity of events like heatwaves, droughts and fires will be more
important in changing the perception of the climate than the general increases in projected temperatures.
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