气候变化背景下旅游业发展的国际形势与中国策略

Tourism Development in the Context of Climate Change:International Review and Implications for China

全球旅游业界正逐步达成一个共识:气候变化已经成为旅游业可持续发展的重要挑战。气候变化给旅游业带来的影响主要体现在直接的气候影响、间接的气候及环境影响、旅游客流的可能变化以及社会影响4个方面。面对愈演愈烈的气候变化形势,国际性的、区域性的旅游相关组织以及旅游发展水平比较高的国家都在积极采取措施,以减缓和适应气候变化对旅游发展的影响。同时,旅游理论界对该问题的研究方法也趋于多元,由定性向定量演化。文章认为,虽然我国政府已经形成了比较完整的应对气候变化的政策体系,但旅游行政主管部门还需在国际气候合作、部门资源整合、减排研发投入和环保意识宣传等方面出台有针对性的应对措施。

It has been widely recognised that climate change has become one of the most significant global issues facing research, policy and practice for sustainable tourism development. Due to the highly climate sensitive nature of tourism, climate change has emerged as a major topic in tourism studies. Indeed, experiencing rapid growth of literature, research on tourism and climate change in the last few years has developed into a substantial knowledge domain. This article provides a review of the tourism and climate change literature and the international examples of responding to climate change,reflects on the current policy responses of China to climate change challenges, and makes recommendations on how China can learn from overseas experiences.Tourism is a highly climate sensitive economic sector, and thus vulnerable to climate change impacts. The impacts of climate change on tourism include direct climatic impacts, indirect climatic and environmental impacts, impacts on tourist flows, and broad societal impacts. Tourism can be directly affected as changes in climatic and weather patterns may change the destinations physical and environmental attributes on which tourism relies to attract tourists. Tourism can also be affected indirectly by climatic and environmental impacts through water shortage, biodiversity loss, food security and so on. Studies have also shown that mitigation policies may affect tourism demands and flows as for example, international policies on air travel may influence tourists behaviour through the increasing cost of long haul travel. To a wider extent, climate change may also have an impact on society s economic growth and socio- political stability, which may further make an impact on destination attractiveness and tourism demand.In response to the increasing challenges posed by climate change, international, regional tourism related organisations and many tourism dependent countries have been taking measures to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change on the tourism sector. At the same time, research methods about climate change and tourism also tend to expand and become more diverse, evolved from qualitative to quantitative, including both destination and source market perspectives.China has started building a climate change policy system which provides a good foundation for tourism responding to climate change. At the national level, a range of policies and actions have been developed to respond to climate change, which mostly address both mitigation and adaptation issues.These policies and actions have identified agriculture, forestry, water, and coastal resources as the priority sectors that are most likely to be adversely affected by climate change and urgently need attention to reduce vulnerability and build resilience. The tourism sector will benefit from adaptation to climate change by these four sectors as they are closely related to the tourism system. At the sectoral level, China National Tourism Administrations Suggestions on Tourism Responding to Climate Change will underpin the future development of Chinas tourism specific climate change policies. Nevertheless,the tourism sector of China needs to further develop more targeted responses to address tourism mitigation and adaptation issues. The paper recommends that opportunities exist in international collaboration, resource sharing, research investment, and awareness raising, for Chinas tourism sector to advance its responses to climate change.