Climatic Suitability for Outdoor Tourism in Romania's Big Cities

This research aims to assess the climatic temporal suitability over the year and identify the appropriate season for open-air tourism in ten Romanian cities. It was evaluated using the Enhanced Tourism Climatic Index on a temporal scale of one day and then aggregated to 10 days over 61 years (1961-2021). Daily mean and maximum temperature, mean and minimum relative humidity, wind speed, precipitation, and sunshine hours were employed in the investigation. The Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope were used for trend detection in the frequency, season duration, and first/last suitable day during the year for outdoor tourism. Acceptable or better weather conditions usually begin in the last part of April and end in mid-October, with Good or better conditions lasting between 260 and 310 days/year. The trend shows a shift of Good conditions earlier in the year (0.3-9.0 days/decade), resulting in a longer season duration (0.8-13.0 days/decade) for open-air activities. The trend is statistically significant mainly for the extra-Carpathian regions. Big differences in open-air events number during the climatically suitable season have been identified among the cities considered (2-19 events/year). This study is useful for better planning open-air events and activities for tourism and recreation.