Mountain landscapes and communities are highly sensitive and vulnerable to climate change. Tourism in mountain regions is highly dependent on natural resources and attractions which are very sensitive to climatic changes. This systematic review analyzing 276 papers, provides a comprehensive analysis of scientific literature dealing with climate change impacts on mountain tourism. While the impacts on the snow season are predominantly negative, impacts to summer season activities range from positive to negative. Contradictory results and lack of research in some regions and tourism activities means the overall impact is far from clear. We identified seven key knowledge gaps: underrepresentation of studies for South America and Africa, lack of appropriate data and indicators, an all-season perspective and investigation of opportunities, economic and socio-political consequences for mountain communities, the need for better science communication, and a lack of studies addressing liability and regulatory risks. Increasing our multidisciplinary understanding of potential climate impacts on mountain tourism and engaging stakeholders to prepare for the projected changes will help local populations in mountain communities create applicable and effective climate adaptation strategies.

Much research has been devoted to quantifying optimal or unacceptable climate conditions both generally and for specific tourism segments or activities over the last 10 years. This knowledge is not incorporated in the Tourism Climate Index (TCI), which has also been subject to other substantial critiques. To more accurately assess the climatic suitability of destinations for leisure tourism, the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) was developed. A major advancement of the HCI is that its variable rating scales and the component weighting system are based on this aforementioned literature of tourists’ stated climatic preferences. This paper will discuss the design of the HCI and how the limitations of the TCI were overcome. It then presents an inter-comparison of the results from HCI:Urban and TCI for geographically diverse urban destinations across Europe. The results illustrate how the HCI:Urban rates the climate of many cities higher than the TCI, particularly in shoulder seasons and the winter months, which is more consistent with observed visitation patterns. The results empirically demonstrate that use of the TCI should be discontinued.

Climate, particularly temperature, is one of the most important resources of a tourist destination. With projected climate change in the twenty-first century, this attribute of tourism destinations is anticipated to change, leading some to conclude that the Mediterranean region will become “too hot” for tourist comfort in the peak summer season by as early as the 2020s or 2030s. This study sought to reassess these claims in the literature and media. Perceptions of “too hot” for comfortable tourism activities at beach and urban destinations was quantified for the young adult travel segment by means of a survey of 850 university students in five countries that represent source markets for the Mediterranean (Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland). The threshold that defines “unacceptably hot” for the majority of respondents was then compared against thermal conditions (temperature and humidity) in a baseline climate (1961–1990), and an early (2011–2035), mid (2046–2065) and late century (2080–2099) climate change scenario (A1B) for 10 Mediterranean destinations. By early century under the warmest available climate change scenario, no additional beach or urban destination became unacceptably hot. By mid century, thermal conditions for two additional beach and one additional urban destination became “too hot” during the peak summer months. In the late century scenario, several, but not all, of the destinations (four beach and five urban destinations) were found to exceed the stated “unacceptably hot” thresholds in the summer months. However, given this length of time and the potential for northern European travellers to acclimatize to warmer average temperatures at home, it remains uncertain whether the thermal comfort threshold identified by this sample will persist. An important contrasting point is that at the same time there is a larger decrease in the number of months that are considered “unacceptably cool” for both a beach and urban holiday and an increase in months that become “ideal”. The findings hold important implications for critically assessing the potential impact of climate change in the study area and other destinations more broadly, and can be used to refine models intended to predict the influence of climatic change on the geographic and temporal patterns of international tourism.

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.