Multidisciplinary and Participatory Approach for Assessing Local Vulnerability of Tourism Industry to Climate Change

The major part of the attractiveness of Nordic tourism relies on natural resources and features such as the landscape, the flora, the fauna and the four seasons. Lately, it has been predicted that climate change will alter these preconditions of nature-based tourism destinations, which may have severe consequences for the tourism industry. Nevertheless, tourism is also bound to many other societal changes that may influence the economics and the development of peripheral communities dependent on tourism and bring new challenges in maintaining their vitality. For assessing these challenges and potential adaptation measures a multidisciplinary and participatory approach was developed in the EU LIFE+ project VACCIA (Vulnerability Assessment of ecosystem services for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation) Action 12: Tourism. The aim of this article is to evaluate this approach for assessing the local vulnerability and adaptation of tourism to the challenges of climate change in two tourism municipalities of Northern Finland.