Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of climate on marine and urban tourism using climate indices in four of Australia’s busiest cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Climate is operationalized using the previously validated Holiday Climate Index (HCI)-beach for marine tourism HCI-urban for city tourism; international airport arrivals are the tourism behavior of interest.Design/methodology/approachHCI-beach and-urban indices were calculated using climate data: thermal comfort, cloud cover, windspeed and precipitation. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were calculated for airport arrivals only and airport arrivals with exogenous factors (i.e. HCI-beach and-urban).FindingsIndices proved significant for each city where HCI-urban scores were more favorable on the aggregate than HCI-beach scores. HCI-beach improved model accuracy in Melbourne (3.11%), Sydney (15.77%) and Perth (37.38%); HCI-urban improved accuracy at Brisbane by 37.73%.Research limitations/implicationsThe primary limitation is that airport arrival data was only available monthly. Using aggregated arrivals also precludes explicitly determining recreational intentions among travelers.Practical implicationsResults demonstrate climate indices can improve forecast accuracy for actual tourism behaviors, including destination arrivals.Social implicationsFor tourists, results demonstrate the meteorological season and city where climate conditions are more or less favorable.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first known study to investigate the influence of climate indices on improving predictability of international arrival forecasts.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
