Yu D D, Rutty M, Scott D, Li S
School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
Int J Biometeorol. 2021 May;65(5):741-748. doi: 10.1007/s00484-020-01979-w. Epub 2020 Aug 5.
Climatic resources are vitally important for tourism, driving major intra- and inter-regional travel flows for sun-sand-surf (3S) tourism around the world. The development of climate indices to measure the suitability of climate for major tourism market segments has evolved over three decades. This study provides the first application of the holiday climate index (HCI):Beach specification in the Asia-Pacific tourism region. The HCI is designed from international tourist climate preference studies and is compared with the tourism climate index (TCI), which is widely applied, but not based on tourist climate preferences. The index inter-comparison is conducted at 14 of the most popular beach resort destinations in China, which include four geographic regions of China with four different Köppen classifications. The results show key differences between the two indices in rating the climatic suitability of the selected beach destinations in China, with the TCI rating beach destinations in the north and south higher during the spring and fall seasons, which is not consistent with beach tourism visits. During the summer months, southern destinations have much higher HCI:Beach rating, reflecting the 3S tourists' desire for higher temperatures. The findings reinforce those from other tourism regions that indicate the TCI is not appropriate for assessing 3S tourism potential and that additional cross-cultural studies of tourist climate indices are needed to better inform market segment climate service development and to understand the potential impacts of future climate change.
气候资源对旅游业至关重要，推动着全球范围内以阳光、沙滩、海浪（3S）旅游为主的主要区域内和区域间旅游流动。衡量气候对主要旅游细分市场适宜性的气候指数的发展已经历了三十年。本研究首次在亚太旅游地区应用了假日气候指数（HCI）：海滩规格。HCI是根据国际游客气候偏好研究设计的，并与广泛应用但并非基于游客气候偏好的旅游气候指数（TCI）进行了比较。指数比较在中国14个最受欢迎的海滩度假胜地进行，这些胜地包括中国四个不同柯本分类的地理区域。结果表明，在对中国选定海滩目的地的气候适宜性评级方面，这两个指数存在关键差异，TCI在春秋季节对南北海滩目的地的评级较高，这与海滩旅游访问情况不一致。在夏季，南方目的地的HCI：海滩评级要高得多，这反映了3S游客对更高温度的渴望。研究结果强化了其他旅游地区的研究结果，即TCI不适用于评估3S旅游潜力，需要对游客气候指数进行更多跨文化研究，以便更好地为细分市场气候服务发展提供信息，并了解未来气候变化的潜在影响。
