Perceived Resource Quality as a Framework to Analyze Impacts of Climate Change on Adventure Tourism: Snow, Surf, Wind, and Whitewater

Abstract

Surf, snow, wind, and whitewater provide natural resources for adventure tourism. Both the resources themselves, and access for tourism, are dependent on weather and hence are affected by climate change. For some adventure tourism subsectors (e.g., skiing and snowboarding) the industry has already responded to climate change, along with other pressures, by changing its geography and business models. In most subsectors, commercial tour operators perceive themselves as affected by short-term extreme weather events, and climate change models are not yet precise enough to predict how these will change over the short time horizons of tourism business planning. Some particular subsectors, however, can provide early warning indicators of industry responses to climate change. These include: heliskiing and heliboarding; professional big-wave surfing; and whitewater rafting and kayaking on snow melt, monsoon rainfall, or dam-release water flows. These responses may be detected through multiparameter models of visitor numbers and the geography of preferred sites or, more immediately, from the perceptions of commercial tourism operators involved in these subsectors.