ABSTRACT
The impact of climate change on tourism has been examined quantitatively in several different ways. There are economic theory-based studies that involve estimating the demand for destinations using, among other things, climate variables (see Maddison 2001; Lise and Tol 2002; Hamilton, 2003). Related to these studies are global models of tourism flows that include temperature as a determinant of the flows of tourists between countries (Berritella et al. 2004; Hamilton et al. 2003). There are also studies that use tourism climate indices to predict the effect of a changed climate on tourism demand (Scott and McBoyle 2001; Amelung and Viner, in press). The latter group of studies combine climate variables in a more complex way to reflect the thermal, physical and aesthetic properties of climate. The former two groups take a more simplistic approach: they include temperature, and up to two other variables. How far does the reduction of climate to one or two variables limit these studies? Moreover, de Freitas (2003) argues that climate data expressed as an average, which is used in the economic studies mentioned above, have no psychological meaning. Nevertheless, the economic theory-based studies and the global models base their analysis on the actual behaviour of tourists, in other words, actual destination choices.
