An inter-comparison of tourism climate indices in the Southern United States: A national park case study

Abstract:

Researchers have quantified the suitability of weather and climate conditions for major tourism market segments over the past three decades. Climate resources are important for tourism, driving major intra- and inter-regional travel flows for nature-based tourism. To quantify the relation between climate resources and travel flows, this case study compares the predictability of four climate indices for park visitation and camping occupancy at two national parks in the Southern United States. The study compares two well-established indices (i.e., the Tourism Climate Index [TCI] and Holiday Climate Index [HCI]) with two emerging indices (i.e., the Camping Climate Index [CCI] and an optimization index [OPT]). The TCI and HCI indices rely on human input (i.e., expert opinion, tourists surveys) whereas the CCI and OPT are data-driven. To validate the indices, monthly visitation and camping occupancy data were matched with monthly index scores at the two national parks from 1981 to 2019. Next, retrospective time series regression analysis was conducted for each index. The results underscore the strength of CCI—a historically camping-focused climate index—where model fit was stronger for park visitation and camping occupancy at both national park locations. The comparison of indices show HCI and TCI index scores are consistently higher, though the pattern is not consistent with observed park visitation and camping occupancy data. The findings demonstrate exponentially better fit for the data-driven indices compared to the expert-based and survey-based indices. A discussion with implications, limitations, and future research directions is provided.