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A GLOBAL SIMULATION MODEL OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL TOURISM: ANAPPLICATION TO THE ESTIMATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTSAndrea Bigano 1 , Jacqueline M. Hamilton 2 and Richard S.J. Tol 31 Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), C.so Magenta, 63, 20123 Milano, ItalyE-mail: andrea.bigano@feem.it2 University of HamburgCentre for Wood Science, Leuschnerstr. 91, 21031 Hamburg, GermanyE-mail: j.hamilton@holz.uni-hamburg.de3 University of HamburgFNU, ZMK, Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg, GermanyE-mail: tol@dkrz.deKEYWORDSSimulation model, international tourism, domestictourism, climate change.ABSTRACTThe literature on tourism and climate change lacks ananalysis of the global changes in tourism demand. Here asimulation model of domestic and international tourismis presented that fills that gap. The current pattern ofinternational tourist flows and the number of domestictourism trips are modelled using 1995 data for 207countries. Using this basic model the impact on arrivals,departures and domestic tourism through changes inpopulation, per capita income and climate change areanalysed. In the medium to long term, tourism will grow,however the growth from climate change is smaller thanfor population and income changes.INTRODUCTIONClimate is an important factor in the destinationchoice of tourists. Climate change is therefore likely toalter tourism patterns towards the poles and up themountains (Hamilton et al., 2005a, 2005b). This couldnegatively affect countries and regions that dependheavily on incoming tourists, but it could also bringbenefits to places currently shunned by tourists. Theimpact of climate change on tourism is qualitativelyclear. It is also, potentially important economically;tourism and recreation is, after health care, the secondlargest economic activity in the world. However,quantitative studies of the impact of climate change ontourism are rare. This paper tries to fill this gap,extending earlier work to domestic tourism and touristexpenditures.Climate change impact studies for tourism use avariety of approaches. Some studies use physiologicalmodels of comfort levels as a function of weather andclimate, either in great detail in a limited space (e.g.,Matzarakis, 2002) or globally with a cruder approach(Amelung and Viner, forthcoming). Some studies focuson tourist resorts (e.g, Elsasser and Bürki, 2002; Perry,2003), whereas others focus on the behaviour of groupsof tourists (Maddison, 2001; Lise and Tol, 2002;Hamilton, 2003). The market for tourism is a global one.The Hamburg Tourism Model (HTM) was designed withthis requirement in mind: a global model of tourism, itdoes not look into detail in any one country, let alonetourism resort, either at the demand or the supply side.HTM does, however, allow for a synoptic overview,including the most important interactions.In Hamilton et al. (2005a, 2005b), we use earlierversions of HTM, which models international tourism.However, domestic tourism is not explicitly modelledthere. In fact, these papers assume that the change in theabsolute numbers of domestic tourists equals the changein the absolute numbers of international departures,without considering the actual number of domestictourists. Recently collected data on domestic tourism(Bigano et al., 2005) allows us to consider this aspect andexplicitly model the trade-off between holidays in thehome country and abroad. Domestic tourists comprise86% of the total tourist numbers.Another major shortcoming of earlier versions ofHTM was that they stopped at tourist numbers. In thisarticle, we extend the model to include touristexpenditures. This allows us to estimate the economicimplications of climate-change-induced changes intourism. Berrittella et al. (in press) do this for HTM,version 1.0, but only for six world regions, using acomputable general equilibrium model. Our economicapproach is far simpler, but it does include all countriesindividually.This article discusses the data used for this extendedversion of the Hamburg Tourism Model and discussesthe results of the simulations using scenarios ofeconomic and population growth and climate change.DATAData are crucially important to a simulation modellike the HTM. The data on international arrivals andAnnual Proceedings of Vidzeme University College “ICTE in Regional Development”, 2006104