THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HURGHADA CITY, EGYPT, USING TOURISM CLIMATE INDEX

Abstract

Tourism is one of the leading sources of income, crucial to Egypt's economy where it contributes more than 7.2% of GDP and 14.4% of foreign currency revenues. The objective of the research is to investigate the impacts of climate change on tourism sector and expecting the future tourism performance of cities. The research has chosen Hurghada, the leading attracting coastal city on the Red Sea for foreign tourist as a case study. The mean monthly data of temperature, rainfall, moisture, wind speed and sun radiation derived by the regional climate model developed by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHIRCA35) for the two climate change scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 used to achieve this objective. These data used for Hurghada climate zone for the future time period of 2005-2050. The impacts of the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios on Hurghada tourism sector will be estimated based on the application of the Tourism Climatic Index (TCI) that is widely used for the adaptation measure of the climatic suitability for tourism, which examines potential changes in climatic attractiveness of destinations, through the statistical analysis of existing and forecasting meteorological parameters. The research methodology on Hurghada shows a major change expectation in tourism seasons behavior and that climate change will play a major role in changing the climatic seasonal Hurghada tourism performance. The research recommends proactive adaptation strategies rather than reactive policy towards climate change to achieve sustainability and climate change resilience of Hurghada city.

Keywords

• climate change
• tourism
• Tourism Climate Index
• regional climate model
• Hurghada