Engaging Tourism Stakeholders in the Development of Climate Change Decision-Support Tools: A Case Study from Michigan, USA

Projection of the potential impacts of climate variability and change on tourism destinations is heavily dependent on the ability to first model present-day relationships between tourism activity and weather conditions. However, current understanding of these relationships is often based more on assumption and anecdotal evidence than hard empirical data. In particular, models that function at the same fine temporal and spatial scales as variations in weather characteristics typically occur are especially lacking in the literature. This article focuses on the processes and associated challenges underlying the development of Web-based decision-support tools designed to enable tourism enterprises in Michigan to project the potential impacts of climate variability and change on their businesses. An absolutely essential component of this study was the engagement of tourism stakeholders in model development. However, this process was fraught with difficulties, from industry members' perceptions of the relevance and importance of the issue, to the acquisition of appropriate data and development of useful and comprehensible tools. The models constructed enable tourism stakeholders to more rigorously evaluate the vulnerability of their enterprises to future variability and change in Michigan's climate, thereby encouraging them to consider suitable adaptation strategies in a more timely and proactive manner.