Weather, climate and tourism: a New Zealand perspective

Abstract

This report is part of a larger project “Preparing the tourism sector for climate change”, which seeks to identify which parts of the tourism sector are most vulnerable to climate variability and change, and what adaptation measures could be put in place to reduce vulnerability. Climate and weather are important factors in tourists’ decision making and also influence the successful operation of tourism businesses. While tourists might expect certain climatic conditions, they will experience the actual weather, which might deviate quite substantially from the average conditions. Hence, in the first place tourists and tourism businesses are likely to be affected by weather conditions, although in the long term these will follow systematic changes as projected under different climate change scenarios. Some of the changes in New Zealand include warmer temperatures, less frost and snow, more precipitation in the West and drier conditions in the East, as well as an increase in heavy precipitation in many regions.