Abstract
Through an empirical investigation of the historical relationship between the destination climate and tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, this study presents the first revealed preference evaluation of a climate index informed by tourists’ stated climatic preferences for coastal-beach tourism (i.e., a sun-sand-surf or 3S travel market). The goal of this multi-organization collaboration was to examine the potential application of a newly designed climate index—the Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Beach—for three Caribbean destinations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia). This paper provides an overview of the evolution of climate indices, including the development of the (HCI):Beach. To test the validity of climate indices for a beach travel market, daily climate ratings based on outputs from the Tourism Climate Index and the HCI were correlated with monthly arrivals data from Canada (a key source market) at an island destination scale. The results underscore the strength of the new index, with each destination scoring consistently higher using the HCI:Beach, including a stronger relationship (R2) between index scores and tourist arrivals. These findings demonstrate the value of combining stated and revealed preference methodologies to predict tourism demand and highlight opportunities for future research.
Highlights
Considered one of the most tourism dependent regions in the world, the Caribbean attracts over 26 million international land-based arrivals per year (2% of the global market) [1], which contributes over $57 billion to the region’s GDP and employs over 2.4 million people [2]
The Tourism Climate Index (TCI), Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Urban, and HCI:Beach index scores were calculated for each day in the 10-year study period for Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Saint Lucia to assess the empirical relationship between index scores and arrivals
The lowest TCI scores occur in July and October, which is the result of both the higher weight placed on the thermal comfort sub-index, as well as the higher temperatures that occur during these months, which is not considered as optimum for sightseeing tourism
Summary
Considered one of the most tourism dependent regions in the world, the Caribbean attracts over 26 million international land-based arrivals per year (2% of the global market) [1], which contributes over $57 billion (or 15%) to the region’s GDP and employs over 2.4 million people [2]. A major tourism resource, and one of the primary reasons visitors choose the Caribbean for their holidays, is the tropical climate [3,4,5]. Caribbean air temperatures range from 25–33 ◦ C, sea temperatures from 26–30 ◦ C, with a dry sunny season from December through April (i.e., peak tourism season) [6]. Despite increasing sectoral awareness of the vulnerability of tourism to climate change [9,10], the impacts faced by the tourism sector at the regional and destination country scale remain uncertain [11], with the Caribbean islands among the least understood [12].
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