A comparison of the holiday climate index:beach and the tourism climate index across coastal destinations in China

Climatic resources are vitally important for tourism, driving major intra- and inter-regional travel flows for sun-sand-surf (3S) tourism around the world. The development of climate indices to measure the suitability of climate for major tourism market segments has evolved over three decades. This study provides the first application of the holiday climate index (HCI):Beach specification in the Asia-Pacific tourism region. The HCI is designed from international tourist climate preference studies and is compared with the tourism climate index (TCI), which is widely applied, but not based on tourist climate preferences. The index inter-comparison is conducted at 14 of the most popular beach resort destinations in China, which include four geographic regions of China with four different Köppen classifications. The results show key differences between the two indices in rating the climatic suitability of the selected beach destinations in China, with the TCI rating beach destinations in the north and south higher during the spring and fall seasons, which is not consistent with beach tourism visits. During the summer months, southern destinations have much higher HCI:Beach rating, reflecting the 3S tourists’ desire for higher temperatures. The findings reinforce those from other tourism regions that indicate the TCI is not appropriate for assessing 3S tourism potential and that additional cross-cultural studies of tourist climate indices are needed to better inform market segment climate service development and to understand the potential impacts of future climate change.