Projected climate suitability for Hungarian tourism in the 21st century: application of the Holiday Climate Index and modified Tourism Climate Index

Climatic factors significantly influence travellers' destination selection and demand for tourism products. To maintain sustainable tourism development, it is essential to monitor how tourist destinations will be affected by the projected future changes in the climate system. This study aims to reveal the future impact of climate change for tourism sector in Hungary using the Holiday Climate Index specified for urban tourism (HCI-Urban) and a modified version of Tourism Climate Index (mTCI). The paper employs an ensemble of multiple climate models (ALADIN5.2 and REMO2015) and emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) to determine the future evolution of indices. Initially, the reference climatic conditions derived from the observational dataset CarpatClim-HU are presented. Then, the climate model results are validated against the observational database for both indices. Afterwards, bias-corrected model outputs are analysed for the periods 2041-2070 and 2071-2100 based on the ensemble of models and scenarios. The spatial distributions of indices are depicted on a monthly level and at a Hungarian district spatial scale. Both the observational and model results highlight that the climatic conditions are more favourable in spring and autumn compared to the summer months. It is also demonstrated that the climatic conditions in Hungary are expected to be more favourable or unchanged from autumn until spring, while there is a general worsening in summer. In terms of the future directions, larger uncertainties are found in May and September. Based on the anticipated trends, the paper pinpoints sector-specific recommendations for adapting tourism services to the altered climatic conditions.