Page 61 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 7

CPS2029 Amira Al-Salhi

The Impact of Climate on Tourism in the GCC
Amira Al-Salhi
GCC-Stat Centre, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Abstract
Many tourist destinations are highly seasonable, shaped in part by the climate
conditions. The GCC region has become an important tourist destination, with
about 59 million tourists each year. The region has distinct seasons and
inbound tourism tends to be influenced by climate conditions. This paper
assesses the seasonal variation in tourist numbers in the GCC, in the context
of the variation in climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, and rainfall.
A case study on Salalah, Oman, which has specific climate conditions, is also
presented to highlight the importance of climate as a driver for tourism.

Keywords
Temperatures; rainfall; humidity; seasonal movements; monsoon.

1. Introduction
Tourism refers to specific types of trips that take a traveler outside his/her
usual environment for less than a year and for the main purpose other than to
be employed by a resident entity in the place visited (UNWTO, 2008). The
tourism sector is one of the economically important sectors, which is a source
of national income for many countries around the world. Therefore, countries
give it great importance and strive to develop it. Tourism occupies third place
in terms of its contribution to the international economy after chemicals and
fuels with total exports of US $ 1.6 trillion in 2017 (UNWTO, 2018).
Climate changes are one of the world's greatest challenges because of
their impact on various facilities and human dimensions. Tourism is one of the
economic sectors most sensitive to the potential impacts of climate changes,
such as agriculture, environment, and water. The tourism sector in the Arab
world is closely related to the landscape, environmental features, and cultural
characteristics, directly or indirectly.
Seasonal movements of tourists are affected by climate changes, such as
temperature, rainfall, and humidity. Seasonal movements of tourists can be
measured by distributing the number of tourists by seasons per year.
Kulendran and Dwyer (2012) identified the factors that cause seasonal
movements in tourism flows: Natural and Institutional factors. Natural factors
relate to the climate changes in the tourist destination such as sunshine, the
maximum and minimum temperatures, wind, fog, rainfall, humidity, snow, etc.

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