Study at the University of Kassel shows: Climate change alters travel habits

The European tourism industry is of enormous economic importance, but also highly vulnerable to changes in the climate. Against this background, Prof. Dr.
Andreas Ziegler and Claudia Schwirplies from the Department of Empirical Research in Economics have investigated how German tourists adapt their travel habits to the consequences of global warming. The study is part of the research project "Evaluating climate mitigation and adaptation policies" (Eval-MAP), which recently surveyed more than 6000 representatively selected German households. According to the study, more than 22 percent of German tourists intend to adapt their travel plans to rising temperatures and switch to cooler destinations if necessary.

The statistical econometric analyses also show the factors that determine whether a tourist will change his or her travel habits in the future due to higher temperatures. Particularly important to study participants was whether they viewed the impacts of climate change as negative, how vulnerable they were to intense heat, and whether they had financial flexibility to switch to more expensive vacation destinations if necessary.

These findings underscore some of the challenges that both the tourism industry itself and policymakers must address in order to adapt tourism infrastructure and offerings to climate change. In particular, the study identifies key target groups for the development of successful and promising product strategies for the tourism industry. An important role seems to be played here by the growing group of older tourists, who are becoming increasingly significant for the tourism industry and who, due to their susceptibility to high temperatures, will be particularly keen to adapt their travel habits to the consequences of climate change.

The Kassel researchers are working on the research project together with scientists from the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI) Essen, the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) Mannheim. Eval-MAP is financially supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the funding program "Economics of Climate Change".

Study
Claudia Schwirplies and Andreas Ziegler (2013), Are German Tourists Environmental Chameleons? A Micro-econometric Analysis of Adaptation to Climate Change, MAGKS Discussion Paper No. 34-2013, University of Kassel.

Info
Prof. Dr. Andreas Ziegler
University of Kassel
FB 7 - Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Department of Empirical Economic Research

Tel: 0561/804-3038
Email: andreas.ziegler@uni-kassel.de