Attitude and perception of tourists in Karnataka towards Climate Change

Attitude and perception of tourists in Karnataka towards Climate Change

Climate change has a strong relationship with the tourism industry. According to the United Nation's World Tourism Organization???s Davos Declaration (2007) tourism industry contributes on an average about 5% of the global Carbon di Oxide emission in terms of radioactive forcing. Studies pertaining to the state of Karnataka, India indicate that most parts of the state could experience 1.5oC to 2oC warming relative to the level during the pre-industrial period of the 1880s by as early as 2030s under the likely high emission scenario (Kelkar et al, 2004; Dwarakish et al, 2009'; Kumar et al, 2015). Travel decisions to a large extent are influenced by the destination???s images of Sun, Sand, Sea, availability of snow and perceptions of other such climatic variables such as temperature, precipitation and humidity (De Freitas, 2001). Therefore, studying tourist???s perceptions of these environmental changes are crucial for the survival of the tourism industry especially in these climate-sensitive regions (Gossling & Hall, 2006a). Besides, understanding the attitudes and perceptions of different segments of the tourists towards their role in climate change adaptation and mitigation is a fundamental step in designing educational and communication campaigns which could be successfully implemented in this industry (Becken, 2010; Gossling & Hall, 2006; Saarinen et al, 2006; Scott et al, 2008; Martin & Lopez, 2014). Therefore, this study aims to boost our understanding of the relationship between tourism and climate change issues among tourists in Karnataka, India. The study consists of five chapters, namely Introduction, Review of Literature, Report on present investigation, Results and Discussion, Summary and Conclusion. The first chapter Introduces the relationship between tourism and climate change issues and brings out the significance of the role of travel decisions the environment. The second chapter analyses earlier studies conducted on the area of climate change, environment and tourism to gain a better understanding of the existing knowledge and to identify research gaps. The third chapter focuses on the research design of this study. It covers sampling plans, questionnaire design, constructs measurement, plan of analysis and Pilot study. The fourth chapter deals with the analysis of data which were collected for the study followed by the discussion of results. The fifth chapter summarizes the entire study and explains the findings and limitations of the study, Suggestions and conclusion.

Bhaskar Sailesh

Tourism