Assessment of climate change vulnerability of tourism in Hungary

This paper applies vulnerability assessment methodology to assess the comparative vulnerability of different tourism supply types by region in Hungary. The steps of the methodology include (1) definition of tourism supply typology, (2) identifying exposure indicators, (3) identifying sensitivity indicators, (4) identification of adaptive capacity indicators and (5) developing a vulnerability map. It is clear that climate change has potential negative effects on tourism in Hungary, but the spatial distribution, as well as the sub-sectoral (by tourism supply types) differences of these impacts is almost unknown. Most research papers dealing with the vulnerability of tourism mainly focus on a specific tourism type, whereas this article aims to address all of them from a regional point of view. The key results presented in this paper include the vulnerability map of the country showing the relative vulnerability of different tourism supply types and detailed analysis investigating the possible causes and driving factors. We have categorized tourism regions based on the five most vulnerable tourism supply types. The most significant of them all turned out to be outdoor event-based tourism, being the most vulnerable in the two southern regions, since the expected impacts of climate change are foreseen to be the most significant in these areas.