IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE FOR TOURISM FLOWS – A CASE OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

Climate change represents a unique challenge to the entire human civilization and affects all aspects of human life, including tourism. At this point of time, the Earth is warmer by 0.7 °C than in the 1900's. Various studies show that these changes are mostly affected by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which due to its properties, enhances the greenhouse effect on Earth. The tourism industry, as one of major economic activities, generates a large share in the total human CO2 emissions, mostly by traffic, accommodation and other activities. Just as tourism has an impact on climate change, climate change has an impact on tourism. In this paper, regression analysis is used to determine the effect of an independent variable (air temperature) on a dependent variable (number of tourist overnight stays). The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of temperature on the number of overnight stays in the selected cities of the Republic of Croatia and to determine whether future increase in temperature will have negative effects on tourism in the observed areas. Based on the conducted analysis, it can be concluded that climate change, expressed by air temperature, does affect tourism, but in a positive way. However, it is necessary to emphasize that there are limitations in terms of optimal temperature, i.e. if temperature exceeds that limit, and no specific tourism sector adjustment measures are taken, the number of tourists will begin to decrease.