Insight into American tourists’ experiences with weather in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract. Weather and climate are often important factors determining the success of a tourism destination and resultant satisfaction among tourists. This is particularly true for South Africa due the predominance of outdoor tourist attractions. Increasing numbers of international tourists have visited South Africa since the fall of apartheid, particularly those from the United States (U.S.), which is an important market for South African tourism. Therefore, this paper seeks to examine a sample of American tourists' experience with day-to-day weather and climatic conditions in South Africa. The results show that although respondents did not feel that climatic conditions were an important factor in motivations to visit the country, the day-to-day weather did often impact the enjoyment of their visit. Most notably, weather controlled their ability to participate in outdoor activities. In correlating accounts of unpleasant weather conditions with the meteorological records, a close association emerged, particularly for excessively high temperatures. This indicates that the experiences of American tourists are an accurate indication of climatic unsuitability for tourism, which poses threats to the South African outdoor tourism sector.

It’s so hot: predicting climate change effects on urban tourists’ time–space experience

“…Nevertheless, several studies have already corroborated the link between weather and tourist behaviour (Beaudin & Huang, 2014;Becken, 2012;Falk, 2015;G omez Mart ın, 2005;Ibarra, 2011;J€ arv et al, 2007;Perkins & Debbage, 2016;Perry, 1972;Smith, 1993). Recent research by Giddy et al (2017), on American tourists' experience with day-to-day weather in South Africa using stated preferences, supports the view that unfavourable weather conditions significantly impact tourists' participation in outdoor activities in particular, and often give rise to a change in travel plans. Weather variables correspond to different perceptive dimensions: physical (e.g.…”

“…Movements may be restricted to the hotel surroundings, or conversely exhibit a broad spatial consumption (Shoval, 2008). Adverse meteorological conditions are believed to have a negative impact on movement amplitude, whether by walking more slowly and doing less than initially planned (McKercher et al, 2015) or changing itineraries to avoid discomfort or risk (Giddy et al, 2017). 5.…”

“…In turn, day-to-day weather has an undeniable influence on the tourist experience. Once at the destination, it is believed that tourists are influenced by meteorological conditions in relation to their activities, itineraries and subsequent satisfaction with travel experience (Fitchett, Robinson, & Hoogendoorn, 2017;Giddy, Fitchett, & Hoogendoorn, 2017). Due to the impact of the day-to-day weather on tourism resources and on tourists themselves (e.g.…”

“…Weather can be a tourism motivatora "pull factor", as Turnbul and Uysal (1995) advocateor an inhibitor (Day, Chin, Sydnor, & Cherkauer, 2013). Although the impact of meteorological conditions has already been the subject of research on tourist flows (Falk, 2015), tourist demand (Becken, 2012;Perkins & Debbage, 2016), economic performance (Chen & Lin, 2014), choice of destinations (J€ arv, Aasa, Ahas, & Saluveer, 2007), activities (Becken, 2012;Chen, Lin, & Chang, 2017) and tourist experience (Giddy et al, 2017), its effect on the attractiveness of tourist destinations and on tourist behaviour needs further investigation (Becken, 2012;Day et al, 2013;McKercher, Shoval, Park, & Kahani, 2015).…”

Trend analysis of cold extremes in South Africa: 1960–2016

“…South Africa's urgent socio‐economic development needs and threatened ecosystem services reduce the adaptive capacity, particularly in the rural areas of the country (Pasquini et al ., 2013; Ziervogel et al ., 2014). Extremely cold temperatures have significant impacts on the agriculture (Wenal et al ., 2019), ecosystems (Leriorato and Nakamura, 2019) recreation activities and tourism (Kodra et al ., 2011; Giddy et al ., 2017), energy demand and infrastructure (De'Donato et al ., 2013), phenological shifts (Wang et al ., 2016) and human‐health in particular in poor rural areas (Scott, 2015; Zhao et al ., 2017; Pascal et al ., 2018). Therefore, understanding the frequency and intensity of extreme cold events in a warming climate is a key societal issue, since their fate directly impact different sectors (Cattaiux et al ., 2010).…”