Human Development Report - Croatia 2008 Tourism^57- Direct impacts of climate change - studies have
shown that changes in climate will change peo-
ple’s choice of destination because they will en-
joy the destination less and not be willing to pay
as much to visit it. - Indirect environmental change impacts - the
natural environment and related ecosystems
are a critical resource for tourism and therefore
climate-induced environmental changes will af-
fect tourist destinations.
Table 4-2 summarises the physical impacts of climate
change and their implications for Croatia, but is by no
means comprehensive. It should be noted that this
chapter does not address issues related to sea-level
rise, which is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter
- However, sea-level rise may have important conse-
quences for the tourism sector.
4.3.2. Direct climatic impacts – temperature
and rainfall
Changes in temperature, along with changes in pre-
cipitation and water temperature will probably have
the most impact on beach tourism in Croatia, although
changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme
events cannot be ruled out. Two methods are current-
ly used to simulate the impact of climate change on
tourism: the Hamburg Tourism Model (HTM)^17 and the
Tourism Climate Index (TCI). Further details on these
approaches are detailed in Box 4-1 (below).
The HTM model was used in one study^18 covering 16
world regions and a number of individual countries. The
analysis revealed that, in total, global tourism fell by ap-
proximately 10% relative to the base case (without cli-
mate change), as more people stayed at home. The study
also showed a gradual decline in tourism in warmer coun-
tries, which was partially offset by increasing tourism in
northern countries. A study of Mediterranean countries
using the HTM showed similar results. Countries on the
southern coast lost tourists and countries on the north-
ern coast gained tourists. In this study, the projections for
Croatia were mixed: in 2100, while domestic holiday vis-
its increased by 25%, the number of foreign tourists fell
by about 8%, whilst holiday expenditures increased by
about 8%. However, for the purposes of this Report, the
HTM could not be utilised to project economic impacts
from changes in tourist flows to Croatia because the data
available for Croatia within this model was insufficient.
There are several studies associated with TCI research.^19
The PESETA project (Projection of Economic impacts of
climate change in Sectors of the European Union based
on bottom-up Analysis)^20 is an early effort by the EU to
conduct a multi-sectoral assessment of the short- and
long-term impacts of climate change. One of the sec-
tors included in this project was the tourism sector.
The study included Croatia within its geographic and
national scope. It projected the effects of the IPCC
SRES-A2 scenario (high population growth with re-
gionally oriented economic development) on the
summer-time values of the TCI. The results are shown
for the period 1961-1990 in Figure 4-5 and an average
for the period 2071-2100 in Figure 4-6.
Comparing the two figures, there is a substantial shift
in the relative attractiveness of different regions for
summer recreation. The majority of locations on the
Mediterranean and Adriatic, which registered very
good to excellent on the TCI scale in the period 1961-
1990 become acceptable or unfavourable under the
climate change scenario by 2071-2100. This appears
to be true for the Croatian coast. In the interior of the
country, the changes are more mixed, but they still
involve declines in the TCI index category. However,
despite these declines in the summer TCI scores, the
spring and autumn scores (not shown here) are gener-
ally expected to increase throughout Europe.
This methodology has a number of limitations.- The results are shown for only one emissions sce-
nario (the A2 scenario). - The approach is based on average monthly cli-
mate data, and does not take into account ex-
treme weather events, which are a part of the TCI
index and which may be important for tourism. - The TCI index has not been validated in the EU
through any correlation with actual data on the
levels of visitation. - Finally, the TCI index only includes meteorological
variables, and does not include other site charac-
teristics that influence tourism participation and
which may be sensitive to climate change, such
as the natural environment, biodiversity, etc.