Status:

Finalizado

Execution date:

2023

End date:

2025

Total budget:

97.210,00 €

Amount of aid from the Biodiversity Foundation:

77.768,00 €

Tourism is one of the areas most affected by climate change, which has an impact on four key aspects: resources, infrastructure, supply and demand, particularly affecting coastal and snow destinations.

Since it is also one of the sectors that contributes most wealth to the Spanish economy, it is essential that companies in the sector can proactively anticipate the effects of climate change.

Although significant progress has been made in implementing mitigation measures, calculating the carbon footprint, etc., the business sector has yet to take on adaptation planning. To this end, it is necessary to advance in the development of specific methodologies that will make it possible to diagnose their level of vulnerability and select those adaptation actions that are best suited to their particular context.

The overall objective of the project is to create the tools and build the necessary capacities for tourism companies to self-diagnose adaptation to climate change for the different types of tourism (coastal, high mountain, island, inland), as well as for each tourism stakeholder (accommodation, tour operators, active tourism, etc.), and thus make a significant leap in the integration of adaptation into the strategies of tourism companies in Spain.

Specific goals include:

– Analyze the diagnostic methodologies applicable to the business sector in adaptation to climate change and create a proposal for a methodology/questionnaire for different subsectors and actors of tourism.

– Work with the business agents of interest by applying the methodology/questionnaire proposal in seven case studies.

– Co-produce with business agents recommendations for the development of climate change adaptation strategies in the project’s reference case studies.

– Train business agents in the process of self-diagnosing their level of vulnerability to climate change.

– Create an online self-diagnosis tool/platform that automatically generates evaluations and recommendations for the adaptation of tourism companies.

– Disseminate the online self-diagnosis platform among tourism companies nationwide so that it is widely used.

• Systematic review of studies, reports and case studies on methodologies for analysing the vulnerability of companies (including social and territorial vulnerability) to climate change and their application in tourism companies for decision-making (among others, cost-efficiency analysis, cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis). It will be carried out in the following four stages:

– Identification of main potential impacts in each sector

– Identification of climate risks faced by companies

– Assessment of adaptive capacity

– Current and future vulnerability analysis

• Systematic review on the selection of adaptation measures in tourism companies (meta-analysis).
• Interviews with tourism sector agents and experts to feed the proposed methodology/self-diagnosis questionnaire.
• Development of a methodology to analyze vulnerability (business, social and territorial) and evaluate adaptation measures, considering the diversity of business models linked to tourism (tourist accommodations and resorts of different types, tour operators/travel agencies and resorts of different types, resorts and active tourism companies, sports in different modalities) and the different areas (coast, mountains).
• Organization of three full-day face-to-face workshops on assessing the vulnerability of tourism companies to climate change, and three online workshops on adaptation strategies of tourism companies to climate change. They will take place in three different autonomous communities.
• Application of the methodology in different case studies (a maximum of seven companies selected among the vulnerable product-space groups) through a process of guided accompaniment for the elaboration of a vulnerability self-diagnosis itinerary, and selection and evaluation of measures for adaptation to climate change. The process includes:

– self-diagnosis questionnaire;

– evaluation of the self-diagnosis with the company through an interview;

– process analysis and feedback to the methodology;

– selection of adaptation measures with the help of a form and instructions;

– Internal evaluation of the process and with the company;

– process analysis and feedback to the methodology;

– Preparation of a document for each company, together with the company, with guidelines towards implementation.

• Adaptation of a self-diagnosis questionnaire and resources for vulnerability self-assessment and adaptation measures for MSMEs for integration into the online platform.
• Programming and design of the platform so that, based on the self-diagnosis, it generates the pertinent evaluations and adaptation measures based on the responses of the self-diagnosis.
• Dissemination and communication of the project:

– Development of the project website

– Presentation of the online platform at a national fair.

– Holding online webinars to present the tool aimed at the different actors.

– Development and implementation of a strategy to disseminate the platform in digital media so that it reaches the largest number of tourism companies.

– Personalised approach to associations with representative capacity of the different tourism actors.

– Publications in specialized journals on the methodology of self-diagnosis and the good practices detected.

• A digital self-diagnosis tool has been generated for the evaluation of tourism companies to climate change based on five forms aimed at 7 sectors of tourism activity related to various types of tourist accommodation, the organization of excursions and trips, mountain ski resorts and other alpine activities, marinas and marinas.
• The design of the tool has been carried out through participatory research with tourism companies and supported by systematic reviews of scientific literature and consultations with experts.
• The tool is based on activating adaptive management processes ofcompanies and facilitating participatory planning processes of climate change adaptation strategies.
• The tool consists of a set of resources for diagnosis, analysis and decision support: self-diagnosis tool, results and analysis excel , five manuals of indicators for assessing the vulnerability of tourism companies to climate change and a mini-guide and multi-criteria evaluation tool.