Abstract
Many studies have shown that the weather greatly affects the tourist count. Understanding weather information, climate change, and how they influence the tourist count in different tourist seasons (peak season, second peak season, off season) can help park planners and managers to analyze the opportunities and risks caused by climate change. This study aimed to predict the visitor count through information on the number of visitors and the weather day for three tourist seasons in a 12-month period. The study was conducted in the Huisun Forest Park of Taiwan based on the peak season (February, July, August, and October), the second peak season (January, April, May, November, and December), and the off-season (March, June, and September), using weather factors and virtual factors (such as whether it is a weekend or not) to establish three multivariate regression models for predicting the daily visitor count. This study assessed the impact of climate change on the visitor count and analyzed possible scenarios of climate change using representative concentration pathways (RCPs), as stated in the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The results of this study indicated that the impacts of weather factors on the visitor count is the same for the peak season and the off season. The temperature and relative humidity have a significant impact on the visitor count, and precipitation is not significant. In the second peak season, only the temperature has a significant impact on the visitor count. The relative humidity and precipitation are not significant. The temperature is the most influential factor in all three seasons, and has the highest influence on the peak season, followed by the low season, and then the second peak season. In addition, the number of visitors in Huisun Forest Park is on the rise, according to an analysis of various climate change scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, RCP8.5). The results of this study can be used as a reference by forest park managers and future researchers. It is noted that the results were based on the current economic and political situation. The worsening of the entire world situation could break the relationships.
Highlights
According to previous literature, the weather greatly affects the number of tourists [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10].According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2014a) [11], the definition of climate is the average weather over a period of time, usually by the earth surface’s measurable variability, such as temperature, precipitation, and wind measurement
Forest Park, this study used the daily tourist count, temperature of the day, total precipitation of the day, and relative humidity of the day between 11/2/2015 and 12/31/2017 with a total of 791 sets of data provided by the Huisun Forest Park and the meteorological observation station in the park, respectively
The temperature variables and relative humidity variables have a significant impact on the number of tourists, and the precipitation variables are not significant
Summary
The weather greatly affects the number of tourists [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10].According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2014a) [11], the definition of climate is the average weather over a period of time (usually 30 years), usually by the earth surface’s measurable variability, such as temperature, precipitation, and wind measurement. If climate factors and possible climate change can be further understood regarding how they will affect the tourist peak/off season and tourist count, park planners and managers can better understand the opportunities and risks under the human-induced global climate change, and this information can help develop more comprehensive management decisions and development policies for facilities and conservation. One way to understand the impact of the weather is through a more detailed (such as time sequence) tourist count. Getting the most modern and accurate information related to climate change information that may affect the tourist count will be important for forest park managers and government policy makers in developing comprehensive climate change strategies
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