Abstract
The importance of weather for tourism is now widely recognized. However, no research has so far addressed weather events from retrospective viewpoints, and, in particular, the role of “extreme” events in longer-term holiday memories. To better understand the character of ex post weather experiences and their importance in destination image perceptions and future travel planning behavior, this exploratory study addressed a sample of 50 tourists from three globally important source markets: Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Results indicate that weather events do not dominate long-term memories of tourist experiences. Yet, weather events are important in shaping destination image, with “rain” being the single most important weather variable negatively influencing perceptions. Results also suggest that weather events perceived as extreme can involve considerable emotions. The study of ex post traveler memories consequently makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the complexity of “extreme weather” events for tourist demand responses.
Highlights
Relationships between weather, climate, and tourism have been studied since the 1960s, and it is firmly established that climate is an important factor in tourism demand and holiday decision-making, including travel motivations, destination choice, and the timing of travel [1,2].Studies of tourism and weather/climate interrelationships have essentially been based on three different methodological approaches: (i) climate indices illustrating the suitability of specific regions for tourism; (ii) econometric analyses of tourist flows; and (iii) assessments of tourists’ weather preferences and resulting behavior
This study investigated long-term perceptions of negative holiday experiences based on qualitative interviews with Austrian, German and Swiss residents, concluding that weather and environmental events are not currently dominating long-term perceptions, and that not all of these negatively demand responses
This study investigated long-term perceptions of negative holiday experiences based on qualitative interviews with Austrian, German and Swiss residents, concluding that weather and environmental events are not currently dominating long-term perceptions, and that not all of these negatively experienced events would be considered “extreme” in a meteorological sense
Summary
Relationships between weather, climate, and tourism have been studied since the 1960s, and it is firmly established that climate is an important factor in tourism demand and holiday decision-making, including travel motivations, destination choice, and the timing of travel [1,2].Studies of tourism and weather/climate interrelationships have essentially been based on three different methodological approaches: (i) climate indices illustrating the suitability of specific regions for tourism; (ii) econometric analyses of tourist flows; and (iii) assessments of tourists’ weather preferences and resulting behavior. The index consists of several weather variables (e.g., temperature, precipitation) with different weighting factors based on expert-judgment. This index was subsequently used as a tool to assess the potential impact of climate change on tourism destinations (e.g., [4,5,6]) and further adapted for beach tourism [7,8]. De Freitas et al [9] used the index approach to determine the climatic suitability of regions for highly climate-sensitive activities For this purpose, they developed the Climate Index for Tourism (CTI), but, in contrast to preceding studies, the scoring of the weather variables was survey-based
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