Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day. Weather Preferences of Summer Tourists in Mountain Environments
1
Institute of Public Finance, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
2
Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
3
alpS GmbH, Grabenweg 68, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Daniel Scott and Stefan Gössling
Atmosphere 2016, 7(5), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos7050063
Received: 8 April 2016 / Revised: 25 April 2016 / Accepted: 26 April 2016 / Published: 29 April 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tourism Climatology)
Weather and climate are important factors for travel decision-making and overall tourist satisfaction. As central motivators for destination choice, they directly and indirectly influence demand patterns and can be a resource and limitation for tourism at the same time. In this paper, results of an in-situ survey of mountain summer tourists (n = 733) in the Alps in Southern Germany are presented. Respondents rated ‘rain’ as the most important aspect of weather during their holiday. During a 7-day holiday, 2.1 days of continuous rain are accepted, and 3.1 days of days with thunderstorms. The ideal temperature range is between 21 and 25 °C, thus lying 4–7 degrees lower than for beach tourism. Temperatures below 15 °C and above 30 °C are perceived as unacceptable. Statistically significant differences were found for several tourist types: Older tourists are more sensitive to heat, tourists with sports activities are more tolerant to cool temperatures, first-time visitors are more sensitive to rain and families with children prefer higher temperatures. From the results, some implications for mountain destinations arise: mountain destinations could be promoted as a heat refuge, and attracting sports tourists might be a promising way to reduce weather sensitivity; however, some variety of well-promoted weather independent attractions seems to be mandatory.
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Keywords:
climate; tourism; tourist; weather; sensitivity; preferences; alpine summer tourism; mountains; Germany
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MDPI and ACS Style
Steiger, R.; Abegg, B.; Jänicke, L. Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day. Weather Preferences of Summer Tourists in Mountain Environments. Atmosphere 2016, 7, 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos7050063
AMA Style
Steiger R, Abegg B, Jänicke L. Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day. Weather Preferences of Summer Tourists in Mountain Environments. Atmosphere. 2016; 7(5):63. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos7050063
Chicago/Turabian StyleSteiger, Robert; Abegg, Bruno; Jänicke, Leandra. 2016. "Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day. Weather Preferences of Summer Tourists in Mountain Environments" Atmosphere 7, no. 5: 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos7050063
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