Climate Change and Tourism Development in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, China

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture has an abundance of natural and cultural landscapes. Its tourism has become one of the pillar industries of local economic development. Global climate change may manifest itself quite differently in various regions and modify local adaptation needs. Liangshan's mountainous territory and high differences in elevation formed the regional climatic characteristics of vertical zonality which is very sensitive to climate change and tourism development at the same time. Then, our paper aims to promote tourism development in conjunction with climate change adaptation, including meteorological disasters prevention and wants to find tourism development ways that are good for local economy as well as environmental and cultural protection. Drawing from the analysis on the regional climate change trends and the impacts of climate change on tourism, we argue that the performance of tourism development is very necessary and give some suggestions about minimization of negative and maximization of positive impacts on it.