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The Mediterranean Sea is a climate change hotspot since it provides a magnified warming signal. Heavily populated areas (e.g., Spanish Mediterranean coasts) are vulnerable to negative socio-economic impacts. This is particularly important for climate-related economic sectors such as coastal tourism, the focus of this paper. To promote a sustainable development of these activities and provide key information to stakeholders, it is necessary to anticipate changes in climate. Thus, it is fundamental to use climate modelling tools which account for air-sea interactions, which largely determine the climate signal of the Mediterranean coasts. In this paper, a set of regional air-sea coupled climate model simulations from Med-CORDEX are used to (i) study the climatic conditions on the Spanish Mediterranean coasts in the next decade(s) and (ii) to assess the possibility of extending the coastal tourist season towards spring-fall. We show that climate conditions are getting warmer and drier in the area, especially in summer. Heat waves and heavy precipitation will become more frequent. Thermal discomfort will increase in summer and summer conditions are extending towards spring and fall. Our work remarks the urgent need of adaptation measures of the sector, including the extension of the high tourist season to spring-fall, especially in the long term. We make a special effort to compile a set of adaptation measures for stakeholders. This study is part of the project ECOAZUL-MED, which aims to create a climate service tool to optimize the management of relevant sectors of the blue economy in the Spanish Mediterranean coasts.

Tourism and climate are inextricably linked to several interactions. In recent years, there has been a greater focus on the linkages between climate change and coastal tourism. This study aims to provide an overview of the literature on climate change and coastal tourism, identify core areas of interest and important sources and authors, and examine the thematic evolution of the field. A bibliometric analysis of 92 documents related to climate change and coastal tourism published in the Web of Science Core Collection database was carried out. The analysis provides information on the most cited papers, most leading authors, the most productive countries, and the most leading institutions in this field. The study utilized the Visualization of Similarities Viewer program (VOS) to map author keyword co-occurrences, co-citations, and bibliographic coupling. The study showed that, with some fluctuations since 2008, the number of publications in this field had increased significantly. The most influential authors and most productive institutions are from the United States of America, England, Canada, and other European countries. The findings of this study will assist researchers conducting climate change and coastal tourism-related studies to understand which papers, academics, organizations, countries, and journals have a dominant influence on climate change and coastal tourism research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change conditions the sustainability of coastal destinations. This paper looks at the physical conditions that determine exposure and sensitivity to and risk from climate change and explores the sociopolitical contextual factors that determine the vulnerability of destinations. We define a destination's vulnerability to climate change as being a reduction in its attractiveness caused by climate change combined with the consequences of adaptation and mitigation strategies. To be more specific, this paper aims to discuss the linkage between policymaking and the vulnerability of coastal destinations to climate change. We look at how this vulnerability is determined by decision-making, policies and strategies and propose an innovative analytical framework to assess vulnerability using a policy analysis approach. It is our intention to combine a content analysis of policy documents with an analysis of the perceptions and opinions of the stakeholders that influence decision-making. The paper deals with the complex, multiple, dynamic and fuzzy attributes that characterize all the items that make up this kind of research: climate change (phenomenon), vulnerability (variable), policy analysis (method), policy contents and stakeholder perceptions (indicators), coastal destinations (territorial system) and tourism (activity and policy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an empirical investigation of the historical relationship between the destination climate and tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, this study presents the first revealed preference evaluation of a climate index informed by tourists' stated climatic preferences for coastal-beach tourism (i.e., a sun-sand-surf or 3S travel market). The goal of this multi-organization collaboration was to examine the potential application of a newly designed climate index—the Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Beach—for three Caribbean destinations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia). This paper provides an overview of the evolution of climate indices, including the development of the (HCI):Beach. To test the validity of climate indices for a beach travel market, daily climate ratings based on outputs from the Tourism Climate Index and the HCI were correlated with monthly arrivals data from Canada (a key source market) at an island destination scale. The results underscore the strength of the new index, with each destination scoring consistently higher using the HCI:Beach, including a stronger relationship (R2) between index scores and tourist arrivals. These findings demonstrate the value of combining stated and revealed preference methodologies to predict tourism demand and highlight opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional climate change is one of the key factors that should be taken into account when planning the development of the coastal tourism, including investments and construction of tourismrelated infrastructure. A case study for the Black Sea coast of Russia shows a series of potential negative hydrological, meteorological, and biological factors that accompany regional warming of the Black Sea Region, that can impede the development of coastal tourism and devalue billions of dollars in investments by the State, private companies, and individuals. We discuss such natural phenomena as air and sea warming, extreme weather events, coastal upwelling, heavy rains, river plumes, wind and waves, tornado, rip currents, sea-level rise, algal bloom, introduced species, and other features characteristic for the region that seriously impact coastal tourism today, and may intensify in the nearest future. Sporadic occurrence of extreme weather events, unpleasant and sometimes dangerous sea and atmosphere phenomena during the summer tourist season, and from year to year can be of critical psychological importance when choosing your next vacation and tourism destination. The research does not include anthropogenic factors, geopolitical, and socio-economic processes, and the COVID-19 pandemic that play an important role in the sustainable development of coastal tourism as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal tourism destinations are highly vulnerable to the ramifications of climate change. Research conducted in South Africa has identified the potential losses associated with climate change on beach or coastal environments as one of th e largest concerns for the tourism industry. In addressing the challenge of climate change a critical research issue is advancing our understanding of the risk perceptions of tourism stakeholders. The aim is to investigate risk perceptions of business stakeholders towards climate change impacts in one of South Africa’s leading coastal destinations, the Garden Route District Municipality in Western Cape province. The results are analysed from 30 qualitative interviews conducted with tourism business owners and managers. Four core themes were scrutinised, namely awareness of climate change, perceptions of the potential climate change risks, the prioritisation of climate change as compared to other business risks, and greening and adaptive measures pursued by businesses. Overall, climate change is not considered as a major issue for tourism businesses in the Garden Route especially as compared to the immediate or pressing challenges relating to marketing, infrastructural deficits, government regulations and local human resource development for tourism. This conclusion raises significant concerns for the resilience of coastal tourism destinations and local economic development futures in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an empirical investigation of the historical relationship between the destination climate and tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, this study presents the first revealed preference evaluation of a climate index informed by tourists’ stated climatic preferences for coastal-beach tourism (i.e., a sun-sand-surf or 3S travel market). The goal of this multi-organization collaboration was to examine the potential application of a newly designed climate index—the Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Beach—for three Caribbean destinations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia). This paper provides an overview of the evolution of climate indices, including the development of the (HCI):Beach. To test the validity of climate indices for a beach travel market, daily climate ratings based on outputs from the Tourism Climate Index and the HCI were correlated with monthly arrivals data from Canada (a key source market) at an island destination scale. The results underscore the strength of the new index, with each destination scoring consistently higher using the HCI:Beach, including a stronger relationship (R2) between index scores and tourist arrivals. These findings demonstrate the value of combining stated and revealed preference methodologies to predict tourism demand and highlight opportunities for future research.

Climate is an essential component in the sustainability of tourism cities. Coastal tourism cities face unprecedented challenges under a changing climate. The complexity of the tourism–climate interface predicates the need for tools that can assess the weather and climate accurately. Tourism climate indices have been widely developed to evaluate the temporal and spatial distribution of climate resources, but these indices are not entirely applicable to coastal cities facing air pollution. This study developed a Coastal Tourism Climate Index (CTCI) to assess the tourism climate suitability of Chinese coastal cities. The CTCI was developed to include five variables: thermal comfort, sunshine, precipitation, wind, and air quality. This index was applied and verified in the case of nine coastal tourism cities in China compared to the Holiday Climate Index (HCI: Beach). According to the results, the CTCI is more suitable for coastal tourism climate assessment in China. Finally, corresponding countermeasures are put forward for the balanced and sustainable development of Chinese coastal tourism cities. This study takes the lead in applying big data to the development and validation of tourism climate indices. These findings provide novel insights for the tourism climate assessment of coastal destinations facing air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to demonstrate the usefulness of a psychological experimental approach in researching the underlying processes of socio-economic impacts of the effects of an eventual climate change in the field of tourism. Tourism demand for the German coasts at the North and Baltic Seas may be influenced in some way by climate change impacts, e.g. by new preferences for holiday destinations due to changing environmental conditions (especially weather) and due to the actions taken by the tourism industry to cope with these changes. A pilot study was designed and carried out in order to develop a method to measure the sensitivity of destination choice to climate change effects and to gain first ideas of whether and how destination preferenceswill probably change. 136 subjects in 5 experimental conditions weregiven scenarios describing 'positive' or 'negative' climate change effects with and without (re)actions of the regional tourism industry.The control group received a scenario describing no changes. Subjects interest in spending a holiday at the North Sea and Baltic Sea in Germany were defined as the dependent variable. One of the crucial aspects was to check whether the applied technique is appropriate for making the situation, which is only a hypothetical and future one, sufficiently clear (make it feel 'real') to the participants in the study. The methodological approach is suitable for further (and more in depth) research: subjects had no trouble imagining the scenarios. The manipulation checks indicated differences, and differences between conditions were also found in the dependent variables. Thus, the adoptedprocedure appears promising and can be applied in future studies. Nevertheless, some improvements are recommended. Within the restricted possibilities of a pilot study, first ideas on whether and in which direction the effects of an eventual climate change may influence destination choice of tourists are presented. According to the data, climate [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]