Climate comfort in Argentina: an intangible resource for tourism
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Abstract
The relationship between climate and tourism has implications at all spatial scales. Yet the climatic sensitivity of tourism varies according to place-specific tourism types in which it takes place and activity type. Therefore, from comfort approach, the climatic features of destination are an important resource for planning. This paper evaluates the climate comfort of Argentina as an intangible resource for tourism. The analysis builds on spatial modelling of the Tourism Climate Index (TCI), calculated for 69 weather stations uniformly distributed throughout the country. The mean annual TCI in Argentina is 73, indicating “very good” climatic-tourist comfort conditions for tourism. However, the spatial distribution of the index exhibits a maximum diagonal band and two mirror regions defined by decreasing scores towards NE and SW. This is attributed to the spatial distribution of the sub-indices conforming the TCI. Daily thermal comfort and wind speed negatively influence Patagonia, while in Litoral, they counterbalance the high amounts of precipitation. These findings show the importance and interest of considering the climate as a strategic resource in national tourism planning.