HE tourismOne of Spain’s biggest economic engines will experience major jolts due to climate change. Loss of welfare in some regions due to extreme heat It will cause the disappearance of thousands of tourists in areas such as the Balearic Islands, the Region of Murcia or the Commonwealth of Valencia.. As heatwaves become more frequent, vacationers will flee directly from these hitherto industry-leading destinations. On the other hand, communities with better temperatures, such as Galicia or Asturias, will come to the fore and benefit from the tourism that others have lost.
These are the results of an analysis carried out by a group of scientists from the Joint Research Center of the European Union (JRC). In their report entitled ‘The regional impact of climate change on tourist demand in Europe’ they detail how visits to different destinations can evolve depending on the level of warming to be achieved.
Climate disaster ‘winners’
There will be winners and losers as a result of climate change in Spain. The regions that benefited most from the increase in overnight stays were Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. Tourist demand will increase by up to 10 percent 7.2%, 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively in these communities. They will be the biggest beneficiaries of this global catastrophe.
The analysis of this group of experts made their forecasts according to four different scenarios depending on the degree of warming and assumptions were made for the increases. The global temperature is 1.5 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial era, with a thermal increase of 2 degrees, as well as up to 3 and 4 degrees. Increase in tourist demand in the case of Galicia in crescendoDepending on these four scenarios, it will increase from 0.5% to 1.2%, 2.5% and 3.2%, respectively, and these increases will be in line with the loss of visitors in other parts of Spain.
In its place, There will be a general reduction in overnight stays in the other eight Spanish autonomous regions. In any of the four climate scenarios analyzed. These are the most popular destinations in Spain today. Balearic Islands for example will lose 8.16% of overnight stays If a warming of 4 degrees is achieved compared to the pre-industrial period (the target set in the Paris Agreement is not to exceed 2 degrees).
Meanwhile, the decline in Murcia will be 6.8% and in the Community of Valencia 3.2%. For this analysis, JRC experts are based on 2019 tourism data, which is similar to what is available after several years of the pandemic’s impact on the industry. So, The most affected are Extremadura as well as the three islands mentioned (the Balearic Islands, Murcia and the Valencian Community)., Andalusia, Community of Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Catalonia. At the Southern European level, the countries that will lose the most visitors are Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal.
previously south; now north
“The number of people who used to spend their summers in the south and now prefer Galicia is increasing”Cesáreo Pardal, head of the Tourism Cluster, explained to El Faro de Vigo this summer. “That’s why we noticed an increase in visitor influx,” he warns. And this is not a one-time event. As he himself noted, the arrival of vacationers who came to the Galician people last year to escape the extreme heat began to be appreciated. “Word-of-mouth communication works,” he says.
Other recent reports, such as the report from the Spanish Office on Climate Change, in the last third of the current century and the 4 degree Celsius scenario of global warming, desert and semi-arid climate covers the eastern half of the peninsula, The Mediterranean climate will expand northward to cover most of the Cantabrian coast, so that Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Vizcaya will all have Mediterranean characteristics.
Juan Antonio Añel, tenured professor of Earth Physics at the University of Vigo and researcher of the EPhysLab group, is well aware that North American companies insure vacation time: “You take out an insurance that guarantees it during the holidays. It’s sunny, rainy, snowy…or whatever you want to rent. If you come. and if you fail they give your money back,” he explained to the same newspaper. “From the point of view of climate and meteorological services, this new line of business already exists,” says the Galician climate change expert.
Forecasts from the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) show: 1.5°C rise in temperatures will occur in almost a decadeAlthough the global targets are to achieve this increase by the end of the century. In fact, there is currently a 1.2°C increase in the planet’s global temperature compared to pre-industrial times.
But parts of the planet such as Europe and especially the Mediterranean have already reached an increase of 2°C, as they are the regions most affected by post-Arctic warming.
Reference work: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC131508
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Contact address of the environment department: crizclimatica@prensaiberica.es
Source: Informacion
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