The climate comfort assessment for tourism purposes in Borobudur Temple Indonesia

Nur Aini Iswati Hasanah,Devianti Maryetnowati,Fauziah Nurchaulia Edelweis,Fadhila Indriyani,Qorry Nugrahayu

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05828

Nur Aini Iswati Hasanah, Devianti Maryetnowati + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05828

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Journal: Heliyon	Publication Date: Dec 1, 2020
Citations: 17	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Islamic University of Indonesia

Abstract

Included on the World Heritage List in 1991, the Borobudur Temple Compounds have been attracting vast numbers of tourists. To increase the number of incoming tourists even further, tourism climate comfort is one of the key elements that must be considered, as it can affect tourist visiting patterns, as well as tourists' preferences. This study analyzes the level of tourism climate comfort using three different methods, i.e., Tourism Climate Index (TCI), Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and Holiday Climate Index (HCI). It further assesses their sensitivities to observe tourist visitation in Borobudur Temple. The climate data for the timeframe 2010–2019 is obtained from the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) Borobudur. Based on the TCI, we notice that the comfortable months were June to August. By comparison, the THI results showed that the comfortable period began in July and ended in August. Meanwhile, the HCI results showed that the comfortable months were July to October. All monthly indexes obtained by means of the three methods are then evaluated in view of the monthly visitation data. This optimized HCI index demonstrates a high correlation with tourist visitation at Borobudur Temple, especially foreign tourist that more sensitive to the climate. Hence, relative humidity and rainfall have high correlation with the HCI climatic comfort level at Borobudur Temple. This study improves our understanding of the climatic index correlation with the number of visitors at Borobudur Temple and can help advertisers and local authorities make pre-trip climate comfort information and more informed decisions in terms of tourism policies.

Highlights

Climate comfort is characterized as the level of satisfaction with climatic conditions in the environment in which people take part in tourist activities
While the comfort conditions vary according to the type of tourism discussed, the presentation of certain threshold values and directories can ensure a clearer picture of the comfort level associated with the climatic conditions of the environment (O€ ztürk and Go€ral, 2018)
The goals of this paper are to analyze the correlation between the tourism climate comfort level obtained with the help of three different methods, i.e., Tourism Climate Index (TCI), Temperature Humidity Index (THI), and Holiday Climate Index (HCI); and to determine the most sensitive index for analyzing tourism climate comfort level based on the example of the Borobudur Temple

Summary

Introduction

Climate comfort is characterized as the level of satisfaction with climatic conditions in the environment in which people take part in tourist activities. Tourism Climate Index (TCI) is a quantitative assessment of the tourism climate which merges tourism-related climate factors into a single index. This is one of the most cited and widely acknowledged climate indexes, deriving from the human comfort impression (Mendez-lazaro et al, 2014). Physical aspects create physical impact that conforming to the comfort level obligatory for the tourist activities entail physical effort. The aesthetic component of climatic suitability for tourism is widely held as a nature-related form of psychological impact (Fichett et al, 2016; Kovacs and Unger, 2014). A TCI uses climate variables that are easy to obtain from weather stations or climate models, which in turn simplifies data provision (Qing-ping & Fang-lei, 2019)

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