The Vulnerability of Coastal Tourism Destinations to Climate Change: The Usefulness of Policy Analysis

Climate change conditions the sustainability of coastal destinations. This paper looks at the physical conditions that determine exposure and sensitivity to and risk from climate change and explores the sociopolitical contextual factors that determine the vulnerability of destinations. We define a d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2017-11, Vol.9 (11), p.2062
Main Authors: Santos-Lacueva, Raquel, Clavé, Salvador Anton, Saladié, Òscar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate change
Climate change research
Coastal zone
Content analysis
Decision making
Environmental policy
Environmental risk
Mitigation
Motivation
Sustainability
Tourism
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Summary:Climate change conditions the sustainability of coastal destinations. This paper looks at the physical conditions that determine exposure and sensitivity to and risk from climate change and explores the sociopolitical contextual factors that determine the vulnerability of destinations. We define a destination’s vulnerability to climate change as being a reduction in its attractiveness caused by climate change combined with the consequences of adaptation and mitigation strategies. To be more specific, this paper aims to discuss the linkage between policymaking and the vulnerability of coastal destinations to climate change. We look at how this vulnerability is determined by decision-making, policies and strategies and propose an innovative analytical framework to assess vulnerability using a policy analysis approach. It is our intention to combine a content analysis of policy documents with an analysis of the perceptions and opinions of the stakeholders that influence decision-making. The paper deals with the complex, multiple, dynamic and fuzzy attributes that characterize all the items that make up this kind of research: climate change (phenomenon), vulnerability (variable), policy analysis (method), policy contents and stakeholder perceptions (indicators), coastal destinations (territorial system) and tourism (activity and policy).
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su9112062