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Tourism climate and thermal comfort in Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan

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Abstract

Bioclimate conditions at Sun Moon Lake, one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist destinations, are presented. Existing tourism-related climate is typically based on mean monthly conditions of air temperature and precipitation and excludes the thermal perception of tourists. This study presents a relatively more detailed analysis of tourism climate by using a modified thermal comfort range for both Taiwan and Western/Middle European conditions, presented by frequency analysis of 10-day intervals. Furthermore, an integrated approach (climate tourism information scheme) is applied to present the frequencies of each facet under particular criteria for each 10-day interval, generating a time-series of climate data with temporal resolution for tourists and tourism authorities.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nikola Sander for proofreading of the manuscript. Thanks to the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan and Chia-Yi Weather Service Office for data. Thanks to the National Science Council of Taiwan for financially supporting this research under Contract No. NSC 96-2415-H-150-004-MY2.

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Correspondence to Tzu-Ping Lin.

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Lin, TP., Matzarakis, A. Tourism climate and thermal comfort in Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan. Int J Biometeorol 52, 281–290 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-007-0122-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-007-0122-7

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