Line of action:

Drivers of biodiversity loss

Status:

En ejecución

Execution date:

2023

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 adapting to climate change and create a proposed methodology/questionnaire for different tourism subsectors and stakeholders.
• Work with business stakeholders by applying the proposed methodology/questionnaire in seven case studies.
• Co-produce with business stakeholders 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-diagnostic tool/platform that automatically generates evaluations and recommendations for the adaptation of tourism businesses.
• Disseminate the online self-diagnosis platform among tourism companies nationwide so that it can be widely used.

• Systematic review of studies, reports and case studies on business vulnerability analysis methodologies (including social and territorial vulnerability) in the face of climate change and their application in tourism businesses 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 the main potential impacts in each sector
  • Identification of the 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 businesses to climate change, and three online workshops on adaptation strategies for tourism businesses 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;
  • analysis of the process 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 methodology feedback;
  • elaboration of a document for each company, together with the company, with guidelines for 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 trade fair.
  • Conducting online webinars to present the tool to the different stakeholders.
  • Development and implementation of a strategy to disseminate the platform in digital media to reach the largest number of tourism companies.
  • Personalized approach to associations with representative capacity of the various tourism stakeholders.
  • Publications in specialized magazines on the self-diagnosis methodology and good practices detected.