Chapter 4 Weather and Climate

Abstract

Weather can be regarded as a vital resource for tourism, and Robinson (1976) suggested weather was a major element which contributes to tourism development. Although it is seen as less important in Peters’ (1969) grouping (see Chapter 3), Boniface and Cooper (2001) devote a separate chapter to climate, suggesting its importance for tourism, and this book follows suit with an entire chapter containing a discussion of weather and climate. However, it is climate (‘average weather conditions over a period of time’) that is particularly significant and Holden (2016) considers it to be the most important factor affecting tourism. This chapter discusses weather as a resource for tourism, and stresses that weather (and the related concept of climate) provides a very significant context for many tourism activities. The discussion below indicates that variations in climate occur in regular annual cycles and we refer to these as seasonal changes. The seasons, the cause of which is explained below, are a very significant aspect of tourism and the seasonality of tourism is largely the result of climate.