Thirty Years of Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Outdoor Recreation and Tourism in Canada
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318472684 Thirty years of assessing the impacts of climate change on outdoor recreation and tourism in Canada Article in Tourism Management Perspectives · July 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.003 CITATIONS READS 16 285 2 authors: Micah J. Hewer William A. Gough University of Toronto University of Toronto 12 PUBLICATIONS 110 CITATIONS 117 PUBLICATIONS 1,961 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Climate Change Impact Assessments on Permafrost Distributions View project Doctoral Dissertation (PhD in Physical Geography) at the University of Toronto View project All content following this page was uploaded by Micah J. Hewer on 23 October 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. TMP-00349; No of Pages 14 Tourism Management Perspectives xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management Perspectives journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tmp Current issue in tourism Thirty years of assessing the impacts of climate change on outdoor recreation and tourism in Canada Micah J. Hewer ⁎, William A. Gough a Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, ON. Canada, M1C 1A4 article info abstract Article history: This paper reviews 30 peer-reviewed academic journals articles (1986–2016) that assess the impacts of climate Received 9 December 2016 change on outdoor recreation and tourism in Canada. The review follows a sector-based approach, covering the Received in revised form 26 June 2017 various activities that have been assessed within a Canadian context. In general, climate change is expected to Accepted 5 July 2017 present increased risks for cold-weather activities in Canada, while there may be increased opportunities for Available online xxxx warm-weather activities. A series of knowledge gaps are identified and recommendations for future research fi Keywords: in the eld are made. Emphasis is placed on overcoming limitations associated with reliance on out-dated climate Climate change impacts science, climate models and climate change scenarios; addressing the uneven geographic distribution of existing Outdoor recreation and tourism assessments and filling the gap regarding regions that are currently underrepresented; as well as exploring the Canada weather sensitivity and potential climate change impacts for outdoor recreation and tourism activities that have not yet been assessed. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction............................................................... 0 2. ClimatechangeimpactsonoutdoorrecreationandtourisminCanada:asector-basedreview.......................... 0 2.1. Alpineskiindustry........................................................ 0 2.1.1. Seasonlength...................................................... 0 2.1.2. Demandresponse..................................................... 0 2.2. Parksandprotectedareas..................................................... 0 2.2.1. Seasonalityandvisitation................................................. 0 2.2.2. Climate-inducedenvironmentalchange........................................... 0 2.3. Golfparticipation......................................................... 0 2.4. Generaltourism.......................................................... 0 2.5. Polartourism........................................................... 0 2.5.1. Wildlifeviewing..................................................... 0 2.5.2. Arcticcruises....................................................... 0 2.5.3. Specialevents...................................................... 0 2.5.4. Outdoorfestivalsandevents................................................ 0 2.5.5. Megasportingevents................................................... 0 2.6. Snowmobiling.......................................................... 0 2.7. Zooattendance.......................................................... 0 2.8. Knowledgegapsandfutureresearch................................................ 0 3. Conclusion............................................................... 0 Acknowledgments.............................................................. 0 References.................................................................. 0 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M.J. Hewer), [email protected] (W.A. Gough). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.003 2211-9736/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Hewer, M.J., & Gough, W.A., Thirty years of assessing the impacts of climate change on outdoor recreation and tourism in Canada, Tourism Management Perspectives (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.003 2 M.J. Hewer, W.A. Gough / Tourism Management Perspectives xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 1. Introduction The purpose of this article is to review all the available peer- reviewed academic journal articles that assess the impacts of climate The important relationship between weather and climate with change on ORT in Canada. There have been numerous working papers recreation and tourism has been well-documented within the academic published by Canadian universities as well as several industry and gov- literature across the international scientific community. Furthermore, ernment reports concerning the impact of climate change on ORT in this acknowledgment has sparked numerous climate change impact Canada. However, these collections were not subject to the rigorous assessments for outdoor recreation and tourism across the globe. peer-review process that academic journal articles go through and are Given the rapidly growing body of literature on climate change impacts also seldom referenced by the international scientific community. For for tourism, there have been several recent literature reviews in these reasons, reports published by university departments, industry the field. Scott, Gössling, and Hall (2012) reviewed the projected organizations and government agencies were not included in this re- impact of climate change on international tourism, outlining the view. However, the value of this review has utility for university re- complex interrelationships between climate change and the multiple searchers, industry stakeholders as well as government agencies. Not components of the international tourism system, while taking a sec- only will this review illustrate the evolution of our current understand- tor-based approach and discussing studies in numerous tourism con- ing on the issue, it will also create a clearer picture for national tourism texts across the globe. Gössling, Scott, Hall, Ceron, and Dubois (2012) policy-makers as well as destination managers and planners about the reviewed the current state of understanding and remaining uncertainty potential impacts of climate change on tourism in the country. Further- among the academic community concerning the perceptions and re- more, this review of Canadian scholarship will provide the international sponses of tourists to global climate change and the implications for academic community with a national example of best practice in the projected declines or increases in specific tourism markets. Becken field of climate change and tourism impact assessment. Finally, this re- (2013) reviewed 459 English-language academic publications from view will also provide national academics in the fieldwithacurrentap- 1986 to 2012 and concluded that the multi-dimensional literature on preciation of the prevailing research inadequacies, existing knowledge tourism and climate change is an evolving knowledge domain, identify- gaps, the geographic imbalance of current assessments, as well as gen- ing key contributors in the field as well as academic debates that have erate additional ideas for potential areas of future research. materialised over time. Kaján and Saarinen (2013) methodically The materials for this review were collected in a series of different analysed 35 peer-reviewed academic journal articles from 2006 to ways to ensure the ability of this paper to present a collection of all 2011, looked specifically at more recent studies in the field that have the peer-reviewed academic journal articles that assess the impact of begun to incorporate climate change adaptation for tourism into the as- climate change on ORT in Canada. Initially, the collection of papers sessment and discussion. Rosselló-Nadal (2014) reviewed the most was compiled through various searches for numerous research projects common approaches to quantitative climate change impact assessment in the field, using scholarly databases at university libraries, over the for tourism, but from a Euro-centric perspective that almost excludes course of the lead author's academic career. Additionally, papers discov- entirely the vast body of literature from North America, that was been ered this way then acted as useful cross reference tools and directed the written on the subject. More recently, Njoroge (2015) re-conducted authors to other papers that had been published since they were being another review of studies considering climate change adaptation for referenced by related publications. Finally, to ensure the comprehensive tourism, identifying a newly emerging theme within the literature, nature of this review, the lead author personally contacted several nota- namely sustainable adaptation.