Abstract

This book discusses the tourism-climate system and provides a sound basis for those interested in tourism management and climate change mitigation, adaptation and policy. In the first three chapters, the book provides a general overview of the relationships between tourism and climate change and illustrates the complexity in four case studies that are relevant to the wide audience of tourism stakeholders. In the following seven chapters detailed discussion of the tourism and climate systems, greenhouse gas accounting for tourism, mitigation, climate risk management and comprehensive tourism-climate policies are provided. This book compiles and critically analyses the latest knowledge in this field of research and seeks to make it accessible to tourism practitioners and other stakeholders involved in tourism or climate change.

I fully expect this book to become required reading for tourism and ecotourism courses in universities around the world. As an up-to-date summary of a rapidly expanding area of tourism research it deserves a wide readership and, unusually for an academic book, will be genuinely useful to practitioners and planners.

This is a very valuable volume, and one which researchers in all areas of tourism studies could well keep close to hand as a routine reference.

This book by Becken and Hay represents the most comprehensive synthesis of tourism and climate change issues thus far. Becken and Hay have made a significant contribution to the literature that will stimulate policy discourse and empirical research on the tourism-climate system. Highly recommended.

Dr. Susanne Becken is a Principal Research Officer at Lincoln University in the field of Sustainable Tourism. Until recently she was a Research Leader with Landcare Research, New Zealand, where most of this book has been written. Susanne led a government-funded project on travel behaviour and greenhouse gas emissions from international tourists. She has also completed a range of consultancy work in the areas of energy efficiency, climate change, and relating policies. At present Susanne is the lead consultant in a UNWTO project on climate change and tourism in Fiji. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and acts as a contributing author to the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; she also represents Oceania/Southeast Asia on the WMO expert team on climate and tourism. Prof. John Hay has nearly forty years work experience in academia, the private sector and governmental organisations, with a focus on bringing an interdisciplinary approach to the environmental sciences, to technical and policy-relevant assessments and to professional training in environmental science, engineering, technology, law, policy and management. John has extensive international experience as a climate scientist, including acting as lead author in the latest three assessments conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Currently John works as a consultant and advisor to many national governments and regional and international organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme. John is also the lead consultant in a UNWTO project on climate change and tourism in the Maldives.

This book is a welcome addition given the dearth of climate change studies in the tourism literature. The authors have managed to pull together a vast amount of information in such a way that the reader is inspired to contribute to solutions, whether that is by learning, researching, or planning for the future. Most importantly, they provide for a way forward.

This is the most comprehensive book on climate change and tourism that I’m aware of. It is a substantial and useful contribution to the literature. It is packed with valuable information.

The book is an authoritative and comprehensive overview of a rapidly evolving area of tourism research. The fresh thinking on the complexities of climate change and tourism interactions makes the book essential reading for scholars and decision-makers throughout the tourism community that are seriously interested in the sustainability of tourism in the 21st century.