Heliyon (Dec 2020)
The climate comfort assessment for tourism purposes in Borobudur Temple Indonesia
Abstract
Included on the World Heritage List in 1991, the Borobudur Temple Compounds have been attracting vast numbers of tourists. To increase the number of incoming tourists even further, tourism climate comfort is one of the key elements that must be considered, as it can affect tourist visiting patterns, as well as tourists' preferences. This study analyzes the level of tourism climate comfort using three different methods, i.e., Tourism Climate Index (TCI), Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and Holiday Climate Index (HCI). It further assesses their sensitivities to observe tourist visitation in Borobudur Temple. The climate data for the timeframe 2010–2019 is obtained from the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) Borobudur. Based on the TCI, we notice that the comfortable months were June to August. By comparison, the THI results showed that the comfortable period began in July and ended in August. Meanwhile, the HCI results showed that the comfortable months were July to October. All monthly indexes obtained by means of the three methods are then evaluated in view of the monthly visitation data. This optimized HCI index demonstrates a high correlation with tourist visitation at Borobudur Temple, especially foreign tourist that more sensitive to the climate. Hence, relative humidity and rainfall have high correlation with the HCI climatic comfort level at Borobudur Temple. This study improves our understanding of the climatic index correlation with the number of visitors at Borobudur Temple and can help advertisers and local authorities make pre-trip climate comfort information and more informed decisions in terms of tourism policies.
