Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Mahmoud Khosravi

Member of Faculty, University of Sistan-va-Baluchistan

Abstract

Tourism industry is considered as one of the most important activities in the contemporary world. Every year there are 1.7 billion tourist travels which cost about $600 billion. The incomes of some countries such as Tunisia and Bahama are provided by tourism industry. Unfortunately, Iran’s share of this industry is less than $200 million. On the whole, there is no doubt that climate is the main cause of the seasonal characteristic of tourism.
In this paper, after examining major points and analysis of some models of tourist regions’ assessment, epistemological limitations of tourism studies are discussed. One of the most difficult stages is modeling the future climate. Assessment of the effect of climate on tourism is a sensitive and multi-faceted task. Considering the need for evidential research, we face many questions that need to be answered. Our main goal in this paper is to provide such answers.
Today, there are evidences that in activities regarding the effect of climate, the mutual effects of environment and human are also considered. Therefore, the present article has also discussed the possibilities and limitations of research concerning climate effects on tourism.
In this paper, first the importance of tourism-climate issues are discussed, and then a comprehensive examination of epistemological matters concerning climate effect research has been presented; finally, strategies for more advanced research about climate effects on tourism have been proposed.

Keywords

• climate effects
• Climate change
• El Nino
• adaptation processes
• climate changeability
• climate change scenarios
• first-type effects
• Global warming
• regional assessment
• feedback
• climate determinism
• regional differentiation
• landscape scenarios
• impact strategies
• ski tourism