Tourism and the Seasons

This chapter focuses on climate as a key causal factor and determinant of seasonality. It will explore our understanding of how climate acts as an important construct to patterns of tourism in various parts of the world. It will illustrate how the weather in both the generating regions and the destination areas produces ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors influencing tourism demand. It will also assess how institutional seasonality exacerbates the effects of natural seasonality creating peaks in tourism demand. Finally, the chapter will examine how global warming is changing the seasons, redistributing climatic assets among tourism regions and influencing global tourism demand.