A Climate for Change

(^68) Tourism Human Development Report - Croatia 2008
Box 4-4: Adaptation concepts in the tourism sector.
Adaptation to climate change in the tourism sector
can take a number of different forms. Tourists can
adapt by changing the destinations they visit, in-
cluding staying at home. They can change their ac-
tivities to those that are less influenced by climate
change. Depending on time constraints, they can
also change when they take vacations. Finally, they
can change the goods and services they consume
while on vacation – for example by renting an air-
conditioned room. Essentially, tourists have a fairly
high capacity to adapt to climate change, depend-
ing on the ability of tourists to obtain and utilize
free time, their access to information about tourism
opportunities and their ability to pay.
Tour operators and transportation providers are
already very responsive to changes in “tastes” and
also to climate variability. They have the ability to
switch destinations and add or reduce flights on an
annual and sometimes even a seasonal basis. They
can adjust very rapidly to climate change, perhaps
even acting as leaders in selecting and promoting
new holiday hot spots.
For the hosts of tourists, such as hotels, local tour
operators, and communities, adaptation would also
mean altering their products. However, the more lo-
cal the actor, the more difficult it is to adapt. Local ac-
tors are connected to the infrastructure, or the busi-
ness was developed on local attractions. This range
of adaptive capacity is presented in Figure 4-9.
Because local actors are less able to adapt (and
most actors in the Croatian tourist economy are at
the local level) this may not be good news for the
Croatian tourism sector. As has been explained,
there are many individuals that rent out rooms, sell
agricultural goods, and provide services at the local
level who would not have the ability to adapt in the
same way a major cruise line would. Furthermore,
larger infrastructure owners are also at a disadvan-
tage with regard to adaptive capacity.
Croatian hotels are predominantly owned by Croa-
tians (probably over 60% - in private or State own-
ership). The remainder are owned by commercial
banks (25%) and Private Investment Funds (14%)
the majority of which are foreign-owned. Although
this is a positive factor for human development in
Croatia, with most of the profits remaining in Croa-
tia, it also means that climate change risks and the
related damages will be borne by Croatian investors
and the Croatian economy, rather than by foreign
investors. While hotels are not the only tourist oper-
ators in Croatia, businesses associated with tourism
are owned and operated locally, which limits their
adaptive capacity. People cannot simply move their
businesses to other locations.
Tourists Large Tour Operators,
Global Transport Providers
and Hotel Chains
Regional Tour Operators and
Region Specific Transport
Providers
Local Hotels\Resorts, Local
Tour Operators and Local
Communities
Adaptive Capacity
HIGH LOW
Figure 4-9: Relative adaptive capacity of major tourism sub-sectors. Source: with modifications after Simpson et
al. 2008.