Quantification of climate for tourism in the northwest of Iran

✍ Scribed by Hassan Farajzadeh; Andreas Matzarakis

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 550 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1350-4827
• DOI: 10.1002/met.155

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Tourism as a major sector of the global economy is influenced by weather and climate. At several travel destinations, climate represents a natural resource on which the tourism industry is predicated. Data covering the period 1985–2005 and from a dense network of 15 meteorological stations was used to compute the Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) and ‘tourism climate index’ (TCI) in Northwest of Iran. The cities Maku, Ahar, Ardabil, Takab, Khoy, Ourimeh and Sarab have a summer peak distribution. Each of these locations has at least 1 month with a TCI score above 80: this level can be classified to be an ‘excellent’ tourism climate. The cities Maku, Ardabli and Takab have TCI above 90, an ‘ideal’ tourism climate for the summer months. Among these cities, Ardabil has the most favourable climatic conditions for tourist attractiveness in the summer. The cities Mahabad, Jolfa, Marageh, Sagez and Parsabad have a bimodal‐shoulder peak distribution.

In addition, based on calculations of PET in Ourmieh Lake coast it is shown that the months June, July and August are lying in the comfortable class representing the most suitable months for tourism and tourist activities. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society