ABSTRACT
Weather and climate and play a significant role in influencing tourism and recreation behaviour. Many tourist destinations, especially those in the tropics and subtropics, rely heavily on environmental assets such as sun, sea and sand and a generally agreeable climate to attract visitors. Climate change, including changed variability, whether natural or anthropogenic, could modify these assets and how they are perceived by potential visitors. Any change in local weather patterns affecting average and extreme conditions has well-known direct effects on visitors, but may also have indirect effects, such as the influence of storms on the structure of beaches. Both of these categories of impact hold implications for patterns of tourist distribution, including the numbers and types of visitors, and the places they visit.
