By Ben Lynam, Head of Strategic Communications, The Travel Foundation

Did you know that many global tourism corporations have already assessed how climate-risky your destination is? And they are actively taking steps to mitigate those risks?

This shift is being driven by new Climate Financial Risk Disclosure rules, which require larger businesses across various jurisdictions to assess and report on their climate-related risks. This means that tourism’s biggest players—inward investors, airlines, operators, and insurers—are actively identifying high-risk destinations in their value chain. Those destinations could face reduced investment, delisting, reduced connectivity and rising costs—without even knowing why it’s happening.

This is because, despite the profound implications for destinations, there is very little transparency, sharing of information, or dialogue between these global businesses and the destinations that rely on them. Corporate risk assessments are confidential, and what you can ascertain from their annual reports won’t give much away, so it is unlikely that nation and place managers will find out they are on an at-risk list until the impacts are already being felt.

So what can you do?

A new approach to assessing destination climate risk

The first thing is to understand your own climate risks. A review of climate action plans submitted under the Glasgow Declaration found that there has so far been very limited focus on climate adaptation and risk, especially relating to risks for destination communities, and this need to be put right.

And that why the Travel Foundation and the CELTH* collective of Dutch universities has joined forces to develop a new methodology to assess destination climate risk. Our goal is to provide destinations with the information and tools they need to understand their risk profile and identify the investments and innovations required to build resilience. It is about identifying, wherever possible, a positive future for destination communities in a warming world, and the pathway to securing it.

Tourism’s climate risks

Tourism is uniquely exposed to climate risk due to its reliance on hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation, its dependence on vulnerable coastal and mountain assets, and consumer demand to travel to places. Yet many places are already experiencing increased disruption and rising costs due to extreme weather, resource scarcity, and changing consumer behaviours.

For instance, reduced snowfall is affecting winter destinations. One study of the US ski industry showed that human-caused climate change has already shortened the ski season by about a week, in comparison to the 1970s, costing the US industry $252m a year from lost revenue and the cost of using snow machines. Globally, ski seasons are set to be reduced by a further 2-4 weeks under more optimistic projections – and up to 2 months under high emissions scenarios. There are similar reports for Europe and elsewhere, leading to conclusions that skiing may have already passed its golden age. In France, many smaller lower-altitude resorts have already faced closure due to unreliable snowfall and rising operational costs. Ski-based destinations need to act now to adapt to this reality and avoid economic decline.

Similarly, tourism within coastal and island locations is also particularly vulnerable to climate change. Sea levels are rising globally at an accelerating rate (currently about half a centimetre each year), and many coastal communities – from cities to remote villages - are facing a losing battle of coastal erosion and surge flooding. Warmer seas also destroy coral reefs and create seaweed blooms which degrade beaches and harm marine ecosystems.

But for tourism the risks aren’t just environmental - they have significant economic and social consequences, threatening jobs and deepening inequalities. We also need to factor in the global supporting system and how it will respond to place-based climate risk. It is likely that the biggest threat to the viability of a visitor economy will come first in the form of rising costs, dwindling investments, changing workforce patterns and new regulations. For instance, businesses in regions prone to wildfires and hurricanes have seen insurance premiums escalate 20 – 50 percent, plus rises in property taxes to pay for infrastructure damage, and declining property valuations.

These impacts aren’t decades away—they’re happening now. Rising flight costs, uninsurable coastal assets, disappearing investors, and workforce shortages are already reshaping the tourism industry. Destinations that fail to plan for these shifts will be left behind.

A risk-based approach will reveal the enormous cost of doing nothing, and help you to create a business case for investing in solutions that build resilience and drive innovation based on future scenarios. For instance, as we have seen, skiing has an uncertain future for some mountain resorts, but this could potentially be offset by increasing summer visitation as people seek respite from heatwaves in the surrounding cities. Paganella in Italy, one of the focus destinations for our research project, sees the potential to create a year-round destination with experiences like mountain biking and wellness spa resorts.

Our project will uncover these possibilities and encourage knowledge sharing between destinations with similar challenges, focusing initially on winter and coastal tourism locations. We will also open up dialogue with global supporting organisations and make recommendations on how they can support, rather than abandon, at-risk destinations in their transition.

Join us to innovate for resilient destinations

We’re looking for forward-thinking destinations who are ready to take steps to future-proof their visitor economy. Whether you are seeking insights, developing climate adaptation plans or building your case for new investments, you can join us either as a case study or a project sponsor. Please get in touch with Ben Lynam at the Travel Foundation and sign up here to receive updates as the project progresses. The main report will be published and freely available on the Travel Foundation’s website by the end of the year.

*CELTH = Centre for Expertise Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality, set up by Breda University of Applied Sciences, NHL Stenden University, and HZ University of Applied Sciences.