Adaptation of the tourism sector to climate change in Spain. The importance of action at local level and in tourism businesses

Abstract

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014) indicates that tourism is one of the major economic activities that will experience negative effects in coming decades due to global warming. In Spain, tourism is a major source of income and creation of employment for the economy. Therefore, the implementation of measures to adapt to the new climate reality, that in our country will mean changes in climate comfort of destinations and increased atmospheric extremes events, is necessary. In contrast to plans to adapt to climate change in tourism activity developed by the state and regional governments, which have hardly been developed in Spain, local scale shows interesting examples of actions to adapt to climate change. These actions have been developed both by municipalities (energy, transport, housing, urban planning) as the tourist company (hotels, campsites, apartments). Water and electricity saving measures, promotion of public transport and clean energies, creating urban green areas and adaptation to atmospheric extremes stand out as the main mitigation measures to climate change in major tourist destinations in our country.