Tourists, weather and climate. Official tourism promotion websites as a source of information.

Abstract

On the basis of the establishment and analysis of 29 indicators, this article analyses the quality of the climate and meteorological information that is provided to tourists on the websites of the bodies responsible for promoting Spanish tourist destinations at a state and regional level. Official tourism promotion websites are a prominent source of information for tourists, so it is necessary to control the quality levels of the information contained in them. The objective is to detect weaknesses that can be corrected to achieve the improvement of the public service that is offered by these websites. The results indicate that the weather information provided on the institutional websites does not meet the information needs of tourists in the different phases of the travel experience, and as a result contributes little to tactical and strategic decision-making regarding the various activities for tourists, in which the weather or climate are relevant factors. This could make it more difficult for them to interact and integrate with the destination and worsen the quality of their tourist experience.