Assessment of the climate potential for tourism. Case study: the North-East Development Region of Romania

Abstract

For the North-East Development Region of Romania, balneary-climatic tourism can potentially become a development engine. To this type of tourism, other forms or types of tourism are added, which are to some extent conditioned by the regional particularities of the climate and bioclimate. To better understand the climatic conditioning on the tourism in this region, we have selected five representative balneary-climatic resorts, located in three different bioclimatic zones: tonic-stimulant (Vatra Dornei), sedative-indifferent (Slănic Moldova, Târgu Ocna, and Bălţătesti), and turn-applicant (Nicolina). The location under different bioclimatic conditions allowed us a good comparative analysis of the differences and similarities between the resorts. For this, we used an hourly database for the period January 1, 1961 to December 31, 2015, from which we built the daily database for all the elements and parameters required to calculate the physiologically equivalent temperature index, based on the RayMan model, its representations, and the climate-tourism schemes. The physiologically equivalent temperature and the climate-tourism schemes allowed us to identify the best periods of the year for conducting balneary and climate-therapeutic activities—both adjacent and standalone, or a variety of relaxing or recreational leisure activities conducted in the open. Finally, the trends of the annual series of PET data for the interval 1961–2015 and the subintervals 1961–1980 and 1981–2015 were identified and analyzed. We were consequently able to draw a set of conclusions outlining a series of changes that are likely to intervene in the relationship between climate and tourism in this region in the immediate future.