Page 102 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 1

Climate Change Responsive Tourism Planning:

The rise in sea levels is another important risk of climate change for the
coastal regions of Türkiye. Coastal erosion cause serious losses in coastal
ecosystem (Kadıoğlu, 2001). Recent studies on the change in sea levels
revealed that the sea levels in the Mediterranean coasts increased by 4-8 mm
on average annually (Aydemir and Şenerol, 2014; Gülbahar, 2008).
On the other hand, with the travelers preferring more places with more
suitable climatic conditions, choices of tourism destinations will also be
influenced by climate change. Germany and England are the countries which
produce the highest number of tourists. If these countries have warmer climates
due to climate change, their citizens might prefer to spend their holiday in their
own countries rather than going abroad. This situation will cause losses in tourist
numbers in Türkiye as well (Somuncu, 2018). Such a drop in tourist numbers will
create pressure on economic and social structure and certain markets based on
tourism sector will be affected negatively from changing conditions.
A study conducted by Aygün (2021) revealed that climate comfort will
decrease in Mediterranean and Aegean coasts in summer months while the
decrease will not be as big in the inner regions, and the tourism period will
shift towards spring and winter seasons. The study, which also discussed the
socioeconomic effects of the changes, concluded that there will be a serious
loss of tourists in Türkiye, and tourism economy will be affected negatively
from it. According to the findings of the study, there will be a 42%-decrease in
tourism demand in Türkiye by 2100 compared to the period 2008-2017.
In another study by Aygün Oğur and Baycan (2022), the medium-term (2050)
and long-term (2080) changes due to climate change in international tourism
demand was modelled. The results of this study reveal that Türkiye is under
a high risk even in the medium term. The study showed that the decrease in
international tourism demand in popular coastal destinations such as Antalya,
Muğla, Izmir and Aydın will reach 50%. However, there will be an increase in
tourism demand up to 30% in Nevşehir, Konya, Kütahya and Adıyaman as
important climatic advantages emerge (Figure 1). However, despite these
changes, coastal tourism will be the leading tourism sector.

Figure 1: The changes in international tourism demand in Türkiye
(%) (2050/2080) (Aygün Oğur and Baycan, 2022)

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