Tourism Climatology: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Founded in 1999 at the 15th International Congress of Biometeorology, the Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation (CCTR) is an international working group that seeks to advance the current state of knowledge in the field of tourism/recreation climatology. Beginning in the 1970s, climatologists explored how climate impacts a myriad of economic sectors, including tourism, with research predominantly centered on how climatological information could be used within the context of tourism planning processes (Lamb 2002). After a brief decline in research activity in the 1980s, a new phase of research growth, propelled by climate change, emerged in the 1990s (Scott & Lemieux 2010). As noted by de Freitas (2017), the field is now truly multidisciplinary, with a range of disciplines contributing diverse methodologies to understand the climate and tourism nexus. Over the past five decades, the two-way relationship between climate and tourism that was once assumed is now empirically observed, objectively tested, and incorporates concepts and theoretical frameworks that support continued model development and global comparisons. The CCTR has facilitated and engaged the growing number of researchers in the field, building collaborative partnerships with industry leaders, identifying key knowledge gaps, and setting research priorities to continually advance the state of knowledge