Abstract
The Grand Shangri-La (GSL) region has strong international tourist appeal. GSL has considerable international eco-tourist potential as well as being attractive for leisure, vacation, health, explorative, and scientific research activities in addition to high-end tourism experiences. These factors could promote the development of its regional tourism. GSL has been identified as a key area for tourism development in China. In this study, we investigated tourism climate conditions in GSL from 1980 to 2016 using a tourism climate index (TCI). We found that through global warming, the number of annual and monthly good-weather days, as assessed with the TCI, showed an increase over most of GSL; that trend was especially true for very good, excellent, and ideal days. The optimal travel period was May–October. We obtained the same result using cluster heat maps, in which we categorized 31 studied meteorological stations into eight types. However, heavy rainfall tended to occur during that optimal period, and it was concentrated at certain times. The annual total number of comfortable days greater than 300 was mainly located in southern GSL. We observed significant correlations between monthly and annual excellent and ideal days with latitude and elevation; in particular, we identified a significant nonlinear correlation between excellent (and ideal) days and elevation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Amelung B, Nicholls S, Viner D (2007) Implications of global climate change for tourism flows and seasonality. Journal of Travel Research 45: 285–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287506295937
Amelung B, Nicholls S (2014) Implications of climate change for tourism in Australia. Tourism Management 41(2): 228–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.10.002
Amelung B, Moreno A (2009) Impacts of climate change in tourism in Europe. PESETA-Tourism study — Publication — IPTSWeb Site.
Amengual A, Homar V, Romero R, et al. (2011) Projections of the climate potential for tourism at local scales: application to Platja de Palma, Spain. International Journal of Climatology 32(14): 2095–2107. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2420
Amengual A, Homar V, Romero R, et al. (2014) Projections for the 21st century of the climate potential for beach-based tourism in the Mediterranean. International Journal of Climatology 34(13): 3481–3498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2015.07.002
Anđelković G, Pavlović S, Ɖurđić S, et al (2016) Tourism Climate Comfort Index (TCCI) — An attempt to evaluate the climate comfort for tourism purposes: The example of Serbia, Global NEST Journal 18(3): 482–493. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287514528286
Bakhtiari B, Bakhtiari A, Afzali Gorouh Z (2018) Investigation of climate change impacts on tourism climate comfort in Iran, Global NEST Journal 20(2): 291–303. https://doi.org/10.30955/gnj.002435
Becker S (2000) Bioclimatological rating of cities and resorts in South Africa according to the climate index. International Journal of Climatology 20(12): 1403–1414. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-0088(200010)20:12<1403:AID-JOC539>3.0.CO;2-V
Bröde P, Fiala D, Błażejczyk K, et al. (2012). Deriving the operational procedure for the universal thermal climate index (UTCI). International Journal of Biometeorology 56(3): 481–494. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0454-1
Bonab H R, Ghasemzadeh B (2013) Comfortable climate to attract tourist by enjoying the pet and PMV indicators (case study: savar village). Journal of Design + Built, 6.
Broede P, Jendritzky G, Fiala D, et al. (2010) The Universal Thermal Climate Index UTCI in operational use. Network for Comfort & Energy Use in Buildings.
Blazejczyk K, Epstein Y, Jendritzky G, et al. (2012) Comparison of UTCI to selected thermal indices. International Journal of Biometeorology 56: 515–535. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0453-2
Cao W H, He Y Q, Li Z X, et al. (2012) A correlation analysis between climate comfort degree and monthly variation of tourists in Lijiang. Scientia Geographica Sinica 32(12): 1459–1464. https://doi.org/10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2012.012.1459
Chi X, Li R, Cubasch U, Cao W (2017) The thermal comfort and its changes in the 31 provincial capital cities of mainland china in the past 30 years. Theoretical & Applied Climatology (3): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2099-4
China Meteorological Administration (2003) Specification for Ground Meteorological Observation. Beijing: Meteorological Publication Society. pp 21–27.
De Freitas CR (2003) Tourism climatology: evaluating environmental information for decision making and business planning in the recreation and tourism sector. International Journal of Biometeorology 48(1): 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-003-0177-z
De Freitas C R, Scott D, Mcboyle G (2008) A second generation climate index for tourism (CIT): specification and verification. International Journal of Biometeorology 52(5): 399–407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-007-0134-3
Deniz A (2011) An examination of the tourism climate index in Turkey. Fresenius Environmental Bulletin 20(6): 1414–1424.
Ding Y, Wang S, Zheng J, et al. (2013) Climate in China. Science Press, Beijing. (In Chinese)
Dubois G, Ceron JP (2006) Tourism/leisure greenhouse gas emissions forecasts for 2050: factors for change in France. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 14 (2): 172–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580608669051
Eugenio-Martin JL, Campos-Soria JA (2010) Climate in the region of origin and destination choice in outbound tourism demand. Tourism Management 31(6): 744–753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.015
Farajzadeh H, Matzarakis A (2012) Evaluation of thermal comfort conditions in Ourmieh Lake, Iran. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 107(3–4): 451–459. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0492-y
Ge Q, Kong Q, Xi J, et al. (2017) Application of UTCI in China from tourism perspective. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 128(3–4): 551–561. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1731-z
Gómez Martín M B (2005) Weather, climate and tourism a geographical perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 32(3): 571–591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2004.08.004
Grillakis MG, Koutroulis AG, Seiradakis KD, et al. (2016a) Implications of 2°C global warming in European summer tourism. Climate Services 1(C): 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2016.01.002
Grillakis MG, Koutroulis AG, Tsanis IK (2016b). The 2°C global warming effect on summer European tourism through different indices. International Journal of Biometeorology, 60(8): 1205–1215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1115-6
Hounam CE (1967) Meteorological factors affecting physical comfort (with special reference to Alice Springs, Australia). International Journal of Biometeorology 11(2): 151–162. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01426842
Hamed K H, Rao A R (1998) A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data. Journal of Hydrology 204(1–4): 182–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(97)00125-X
Höppe P (1999) The physiological equivalent temperature-a universal index for the biometeorological assessment of the thermal environment. International Journal of Biometeorology 43(2): 71–75.
Hastie T, Tibshirani R, Friedman J (2001) The elements of statistical learning, data mining inference and prediction. New York: Springer-Verlag. pp 453–480
Hamed K (2008) Trend detection in hydrologic data: The Mann-Kendall trend test under the scaling hypothesis. Journal of Hydrology 349: 350–363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2007.11.0
Hamilton JM, Lau M A (2005) The role of climate information in tourist destination choice decision-making. In: Gössling S, Hall CM (eds.), Tourism and global environmental change: ecological, social, economic and political interrelationships. Routledge, London. pp 229–250.
Hernández-Lobato L, Solis-Radilla MM, Moliner-Tena MA, et al. (2006) Tourism destination image, satisfaction and loyalty: A study in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Tourism Geographies 8(4): 343–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616680600922039
Hewer MJ, Gough WA (2017) Thirty years of assessing the impacts of climate change on outdoor recreation and tourism in Canada. Tourism Management Perspectives 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.003
IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers. Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.
Jendritzky G, Dear RD, Havenith G (2012) UTCI—Why another thermal index? International Journal of Biometeorology 56(3): 421–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0513-7
Kendall MG (1975) Rank Correlation Methods. Griffin, London, UK.
Kendrick RJ (2005) An introduction using SPSS. Pearson Education Canada, Newmarket Canada.
Koutroulis AG, Grillakis MG, Tsanis IK, et al. (2018). Mapping the vulnerability of European summer tourism under 2°C global warming. Climatic Change 151(2): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2298-8
Lin T, Hwang C, Cheng H (2006) The influence of climate information on travel arrangements. In: Proceedings of the 8th Leisure, Recreation and Tourism Research Symposium, Taipei, 7 October 2006. Outdoor Recreation Association, Taipei. pp 120–126.
Lin TP, Matzarakis A (2011) Tourism climate information based on human thermal perception in Taiwan and Eastern China. Tourism Management 32(3): 492–500. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.03.017
Li R, Chi X (2014) Thermal comfort and tourism climate changes in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the last 50 years. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 117(3–4): 613–624. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-1027-5
Li H, Goh C, Hung K (2017) Relative climate index and its effect on seasonal tourism demand. Journal of Travel Research 57 (4). https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287516687409
Mann H (1945) Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13(3): 124–259. https://doi.org/10.2307/1907187
Mayer H, Höppe P (1987) Thermal comfort of man in different urban environments. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 38(1): 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00866252
Martín GMB (2005) Weather, climate and tourism: a geographical perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 32(3): 571–591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2004.08.004
Matzarakis A (2006) Weather-and Climate-Related Information for Tourism. Tourism & Hospitality Planning & Development 3(2): 99–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790530600938279
Matzarakis A (2007) Assessment method for climate and tourism based on daily data. Developments in Tourism Climatology 52–58.
Matzarakis A, Rammelberg J, Junk J (2013) Assessment of thermal bioclimate and tourism climate potential for central Europe—the example of Luxembourg. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 114(1–2): 193–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-0835-y
Ma LJ, Sun GN, Wang JJ (2009) Evaluation of tourism climate comfortableness of coastal cities in the eastern China. Progress in Geography 28(5): 713–722. (In Chinese) https://doi.org/10.1016/S1874-8651(10)60080-4
Missenard FA (1933) Temperature of an atmosphere temperature of a general result. In: Encyclopedia of industrial and commercial design the technical and physiological breakdown. The Technical Librerie, Paris. pp 131–185.
Mieczkowski Z (1985) The Tourism Climatic Index: a method of evaluating world climates for tourism. Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien 29(3): 220–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1985.tb00365.x
Morgan R, Gatell E, Junyent R, et al. (2000) An improved user-based beach climate index. Journal of Coastal Conservation 6(1): 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02730466
Moreno A, Amelung B (2009) Climate change and tourist comfort on Europe’s beaches in summer: a reassessment. Coastal Management 37(6): 550–568. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920750903054997
Mohammad RMD, Ali B, Taghi T (2013) Assessment of bioclimatic comfort conditions based on Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) using the RayMan Model in Iran. Central European Journal of Geosciences 5(1): 53–60. https://doi.org/10.2478/s13533-012-0118-7
Nasirihendkhaleh E, Zahraei A, Ghadiri H, et al, (2014) Zoning evaluation of Eco-Touristic potentials of bio-climatic comfortability in the province of Fars, using Geographical information system (GIS). International Symposium on Antennas & Propagation 2: 768–776. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMCA.2012.2187889
Nunes PA, Cai M, Ferrise R, et al. (2013) An Econometric Analysis of Climate Change Impacts on Tourism Flows: An Empirical Evidence from the Region of Tuscany, Italy. International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics 31(4): 1–20.
Nicholls S (2006) Climate change, tourism and outdoor recreation in Europe. Managing Leisure 11(3): 151–163. https://doi.org/10.1080/13606710600715226
Olya HGT, AliPour H (2015) Risk assessment of precipitation and the tourism climate index. Tourism Management 50: 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.01.010
Perry A (1997) Recreation and tourism. In: Thompson RD, Perry AH (eds.), Applied Climatology. Routledge, London. pp 240–248.
Perch-Nielsen SL, Amelung B, et al. (2010) Future climate resources for tourism in europe based on the daily tourism climatic index. Climatic Change 103(3–4): 363–381. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9772-2
Ridderstaat J, Oduber M, Croes R, et al. (2014) Impacts of seasonal patterns of climate on recurrent fluctuations in tourism demand: evidence from Aruba. Tourism Management 41: 245–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.09.005
Rosselló-Nadal J (2014) How to evaluate the effects of climate change on tourism. Tourism Management 42: 334–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.11.006
Roshan G, Yousefi R, Fitchett JM (2016) Long-term trends in tourism climate index scores for 40 stations across iran: the role of climate change and influence on tourism sustainability: journal of the international society of biometeorology. International Journal of Biometeorology 60(1): 33–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1003-0
Saarinen J (2014) Nordic perspectives on tourism and climate change issues. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 14(1): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/15022250.2014.886098
Shi Y, Zhong L, Chen T, et al (2016) Tourism Competitiveness Evaluation and Spatio-temporal Characteristics of Chinese Border Counties. Chinese Geographical Science 26(6): 817–828. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-016-0822-1
Singh R (2016) The state of Indian tourism and hospitality research: a review and analysis of journal publications. Tourism Management Perspectives 17: 90–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2015.07.002
Scott D, Jones B, Mcboyle G (2006) Climate, tourism and recreation: A bibliography 1936 to 2005. Waterloo, Canada University of Waterloo. Available at: https://doi.org/www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/geography/faculty/ppages/danielscott/publications.htm
Scott D, Mcboyle G, Schwartzentruber M (2004) Climate change and the distribution of climatic resources for tourism in North America. Climate Research 27(2): 105–117. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr027105
UNWTO (2008) Climate change and tourism — Responding to global challenges. Madrid, Spain: World Tourism Organization.
UNWTO (2016) UNWTO Annual Report from: https://doi.org/media.unwto.org/publication/unwto-annual-report-2016.
UNEP (2008) Disaster risk management for coastal tourism destinations responding to climate change: A practical guide for decision makers. Milan: United Nations Environmental Program.
Urioste-Stone SMD, Scaccia MD, Howe-Poteet D (2015) Exploring visitor perceptions of the influence of climate change on tourism at Acadia National Park, Maine. Journal of Outdoor Recreation & Tourism 11: 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2015.07.001
von Storch, Navarra A (1999). Misuses of statistical analysis in climate research. In: von Storch H, Navarra A (eds.), Analysis of Climate Variability: Applications of Statistical Techniques Proceedings of an Autumn School Organized by the Commission of the European Community on Elba from October 30 to November 6, 1993. Springer Berlin. https://doi.org/10.1007/2F978-3-662-03744-7_2
WTTC (2018) Economic impact of travel and tourism: 2017 annual update summary. World Travel and Tourism Council. Available at https://doi.org/www.wttc.org/research/economic-research/economic-impactanalysis/
Wilkins E, Urioste-Stone SD, Weiskittel A, et al. (2017) Effects of weather conditions on tourism spending: implications for future trends under climate change. Journal of Travel Research 57(8): 1042–1053. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287517728591
Xia LH, Xie JL (2014) SPSS Standard Guide for data statistics and analysis. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. pp 171–176. (In Chinese)
Xu KJ, Zhang BP (2008) Natural and cultural diversity in the Grand Shangri-La region. Mountain in Research 26(2):212–217. (In Chinese) https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1008-2786.2008.02.012
Yu G, Schwartz Z, Walsh JE (2009) Effects of climate change on the seasonality of weather for tourism in Alaska. Arctic 62(4): 443–457. https://doi.org/10.2307/40513335
Yu ZK, Sun GN, Feng Q, et al. (2014) Tourism Climate Comfort and Risk for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Resources Science 36(11): 2327–2336. (In Chinese)
Yang XB, Sun DF, Zhou XJ, et al. (2011) Indoor thermal comfort and its effect on building energy consumption. Applied Mechanics and Materials 71–78: 3516–3519. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.71-78.3516
Yang XM (2013) Research on the co-opetition relationship in Grand Shangri-La tourism development. Areal Research & Development 32(3): 72–76. (In Chinese) https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1003-2363.2013.03.014
Yang J, Zhang ZC, Li XM, et al. (2018) Spatial differentiation of china’s summer tourist destinations based on climatic suitability using the universal thermal climate index. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 134: 859–874. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2312-5
Yazdanpanah H, Barghi H, Esmaili, A (2016) Effect of climate change impact on tourism: a study on climate comfort of Zayandehroud River route from 2014 to 2039. Tourism Management Perspectives 17(129): 82–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2015.12.002
Zhang F, Zhang M, Wang S, et al. (2016) Evaluation of the tourism climate in the Hexi Corridor of northwest China’s Gansu Province during 1980–2012. Theoretical & Applied Climatology 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1814-x
Zhang SY, Zhang HD, Xu XD, et al. (2005) Climatic character and cause analysis of summer high temperature in main cities of east China. Plateau Meteorology 24(5): 829–835. (In Chinese)
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41571516, 41471448) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA19040503, XDA19040504). The meteorological data was provided by China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System of National Meteorological Information Center (https://doi.org/www.nmic.gov.cn/).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cheng, Qp., Zhong, Fl. Evaluation of tourism climate comfort in the Grand Shangri-La region. J. Mt. Sci. 16, 1452–1469 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5081-4
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5081-4
Keywords
- Grand Shangri-La region
- Evaluation
- Tourism climate comfort
- Cluster heat maps
- Temperature
- Precipitation