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Tourism

The Impact of Climate Change on Small Island Nations and Their Tourism Future

Rafat Ali photo
Rafat Ali

Photo Credit: The small island of Moheli in the island nation of Comoros, off the east coast of Africa. Skift / Rafat Ali

Skift Take

Climate directly impacts environmental resources that are major tourism attractions on small islands. Expect much more upheaval in the near future.

Yesterday we started a series on the impact of climate change on tourism businesses and regions around the world, based on the just released report from United Nations scientific panel Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The first in the series was the effect of these changes on the coastal and low lying areas. The second extract in the series is the impact of climate change and global warming on the small island nations around the world. Current and future climate-related drivers of risk for small islands during the 21st century include sea-level rise, tropical and extra-tropical cyclones, increasing air and sea surface temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns. How will this affect tourism businesses? Some of the language below is the dense officialese of these reports, so we will edit for clarity as needed.

Whilst traditional settlements on high islands in the Pacific were often located inland, the move to coastal locations was encouraged by colonial and religious authorities and more recently through the development of tourism. Now the majority of settlement, infrastructure and development are located on lowlands along the coastal fringe of small islands. In the case of atoll is

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