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Participatory planning is one strategy to increase tourism suppliers' capacity to jointly anticipate climate change impacts and implement locally feasible and acceptable solutions; however, participatory planning is uncommon. In this study, we co-created a series of planning workshops with tourism partners to examine and address climate change impacts (challenges and opportunities) on Mount Desert Island, Maine, USA. We co-designed and facilitated two Zoom workshops in spring 2021 for tourism suppliers. Workshops focused on (1) identifying climate change impacts to the tourism system and (2) developing planning priorities for the destination. Workshops resulted in two planning priorities: visitation shifts and the opportunity to become a more sustainable destination in response to climate change. Our participatory approach brought together diverse tourism suppliers that do not usually collaborate to increase the destination's capacity to plan for and respond to climate change. Similar participatory approaches may benefit other natural resource dependent contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is an important industry to many regions around the world and has the potential to substantially impact local communities. Climate change is expected to influence tourism since weather patterns help determine where and when people travel. In this analysis, the effect of weather conditions on tourism-related spending at three geographically distinct locations in Maine, United States, was evaluated. A nonparametric method (boosted regression trees) was used to first identify the relative influence of twenty-two weather variables as predictors of tourism spending. Following this, a parametric model was constructed to statistically evaluate tourism spending across different measures and predict potential spending changes due to a warming climate. Results indicated that warmer temperatures increased tourism spending in the summer and fall, but had more varying results in the winter. Findings suggest tourism businesses in Maine and other relatively colder destinations could capitalize on potential gains in warmer months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]