The participants of a panel on the impact of climate change on tourism agreed on Thursday that certain consequences of climate change could not be avoided and all sectors, including tourism, had to adapt accordingly.
Bogomir Kovac of the Ljubljana Economics Faculty said that tourism shared the fate of other sectors. He thinks that it would be the first one to be stricken, however it would also be the fastest in finding solutions.
Air traffic contributed greatly to the development of tourism, but it is also one of the biggest polluters. Lucka Kajfez Bogataj of the Ljubljana Biotechnical Faculty said that air fares would rise, including due to a carbon tax.
She added that beside ticket prices, tourism would be affected by higher temperatures and smaller precipitation, which would without doubt strongly affect Slovenia and the Mediterranean.
Mountains are among the most threatened environments. According to some analyses, only ski resorts more than 1,400m or even 1,500m above the sea level would thrive in the future.
Drago Sever of the Maribor Faculty of Civil Engineering believes that Slovenian ski lift operators know how to adapt and that fears are exaggerated.
Hot summers will also affect tourism in coastal areas. Dusan Plut of the geography department at the Ljubljana Faculty of Arts said that the season would have to be prolonged and that in the summer more tourists would travel to the Alps, which he sees as a new opportunity.
With some ten tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita, Slovenia is on par with the European average, but significantly above the world average of 3.9 tonnes, Plut said.
The panel was organised by the Environment and Spatial Planning Ministry, the Slovenian Tourist Board, the Economy Ministry's Tourism Directorate and several other tourism organisations.
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