A metric-based assessment of climate and tourism in major cities of Pakistan

Abstract

Tourism plays an essential role in the economic development of a country and has become a growing phenomenon of global importance. The climate change on the other hand has a direct effect and degrades the environmental components and features of the destinations. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to changing the climate which has threatened the tourism sector. The study has emphasized on the significance of the climate in the tourism industry by using the Tourism Climate Index (TCI) which highlights suitable regions and seasons. TCI has been used worldwide to enumerate the impacts of climate change on tourism and tourist destinations. The current study calculates the TCI for four cities of Pakistan, chosen by public opinion. For measuring the index, climatic data of twenty-one years (1997–2017) were taken from the Pakistan Meteorological Department, which include temperature, precipitation, sunshine hours, humidity and wind speed. The results showed that among the seasonal distribution, autumn and spring are good seasons for tourism. Climatic suitability in summer was not favorable for Lahore and Islamabad because of high rainfall and lower thermal comfort. A rapid change in the Annual TCI score was observed and investigated through the contribution of TCI components which happens to be the core reason for the change. Analysis has shown that 75% of the study area as a Bi-modal shoulder peak and 25% as a winter peak. For city Lahore, a maximum number of months were observed as “Excellent” and “Good” for tourism due to a high TCI score. Furthermore, future projection predicts that tourism in Lahore will be highly threatened due to rapidly changing climate. Government and tourism stakeholders should conduct such relevant studies at large scale for a better understanding of favorable and unsuitable tourist destinations across Pakistan.