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).

This article analyses the factors that determine the mode of transport (bus, taxi or private car) chosen by tourists for transfers from a peripherally located high-speed rail station to their final destination. The study is based on a survey completed by tourists who used high-speed rail services to travel to the Costa Daurada, a tourism area on the Mediterranean coast of Southern Catalonia, Spain. The results of this study show that variables associated with the characteristics of the stay had a more decisive influence upon the decisions made by the travellers than the socio-demographic profiles of the tourists surveyed. The availability of direct public transport services for transfers from the station to the final destinations was a much more relevant factor than the cost and duration of the resulting trip. This study provides empirical evidence of the importance of accessibility for peripheral stations. In these cases, good connections via public transport apparently play a key role in both improving tourism development and promoting more sustainable mobility within the region.

We analysed the determinants of the length of stay for tourists arriving in a Mediterranean coastal destination by means of high-speed rail (HSR) service. This study is based on data obtained from a survey completed by HSR passengers returning from holiday in Costa Daurada (Catalonia). The empirical analysis is based on estimations made using a survival model. The influence of the availability of HSR service on tourists’ destination choices together with the tourists’ profiles, party structure or accommodation characteristics was used as explanatory variables. Results revealed that the existence of HSR services played a minor role in tourists’ decision of whether to visit the Costa Daurada. Also, evidence suggests that the existence of the HSR station would only affect the length of stay of those tourists who stay overnight in second residences.

Climate change, unsustainable water use by the tourism sector, and short-term-based decisions by policymakers create additional stress on limited water resources in arid and semi-arid tourism destinations. Non-conventional water resources are playing an important role in making additional water available for these destinations, and the use of desalination plants has gradually increased. However, they can create additional externalities on the environment that can compromise the sustainability of the tourist destination. The decisions of key stakeholders and cooperation among them hold vital importance for the sustainability of tourism and the availability of water resources. Mykonos Island (Greece) is a globally recognized tourist destination in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The island has suffered significant water-scarcity problems in recent years, in particular during the peak tourist season, and desalination plants are being built to reduce stress on the water supply. The first objective of this work was to analyze the perceptions of hospitality stakeholders regarding water shortages and climate change in Mykonos. A second objective was to assess whether the same hospitality stakeholders feel that desalination plants are the solution to water scarcity in island-tourism destinations such as Mykonos. The results show that (i) hospitality stakeholders have significant awareness regarding water-scarcity problems and the impacts of climate change on tourism activity, (ii) they do not view desalination plants as the only solution to water scarcity, and (iii) they perceive a significant lack of coordination among actors who participate in the decision-making process. These results provide clues regarding the importance of awareness, coordination, and cooperation of each actor involved in the decision-making process and can be of interest to policymakers and public authorities in tourism destinations facing water-scarcity problems.