Sensitivity of winter tourism to temperature increases over the last decades

Trial lecture for appointment as a docent (docentföreläsning) by Xiang Lin.

This study provides new evidence on the impact of temperatures on tourism demand in the winter season. The analysis is based on time series data spanning from 1960 to 2015 for the South Tyrolean mountains in Italy. Since 1960, winter temperatures have increased by 0.4 degrees Celsius per decade, on average. A nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed for the estimations. Results reveal that sensitivity to temperature increases has been declining since the early 1990s, probably due to the widespread usage of snowmaking facilities. In recent years (1986–2015), and as a consequence of these measures, temperature increases no longer have an effect on winter tourism demand. Conversely, decreases in temperatures lead to small increases in arrivals.

Xiang Lin received his doctorate in Economics from Stockholm University and joined Södertörn University in 1998 as Research Associate and then Senior Lecturer. Dr. Lin’s research interests include macroeconomics, financial economics, tourism, entrepreneurship and time-series analysis. He investigates how economic shocks, climate change, and Covid have affected tourism demands. His research also focuses on the impacts of business cycle and economic crimes on the survivability of Swedish firms. In his docent lecture, he presents his cumulative research and specifically focuses on the importance of modeling asymmetric reactions for analyzing the sustainability of the skiing industry with increasing temperatures.

Zoom link:
https://sh-se.zoom.us/j/65160222607?pwd=MnM0KzdWcEExSUI0V05uYjluazk2UT09 External link, opens in new window.
Meeting ID: 651 6022 2607
Passcode: 347334