article · Journal of Sustainable Tourism
A systematic review synthesises the evolution of literature on climate change and tourism across Africa since 2014, evaluating research trends, policy considerations, and persistent knowledge gaps. The assessment identifies expanding environmental risks confronting the African tourism sector. These threats include rising temperatures, more severe droughts and floods, rising sea levels, melting snow, coral bleaching, and an increased frequency of tropical cyclones. While understanding of climate change impacts on the continent's tourism sector has progressed, significant gaps remain across specific regions and thematic subjects. Addressing these gaps is vital to guide sector responses to projected climate impacts highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Tourism is a crucial economic sector across Africa, yet climate change poses severe physical threats to key destinations and infrastructure. Understanding vulnerabilities such as coastal flooding, coral loss, and extreme weather enables planners, policymakers, and communities to design better adaptation strategies. Addressing remaining information gaps ensures that vulnerable regions receive the evidence necessary to protect their tourism assets and livelihoods.
The abstract does not indicate a direct commercial application pathway, as it presents an early-stage review of academic literature and policy issues. Destination planners, tourism authorities, and sector operators could potentially draw upon the identified climate risks to guide adaptation strategies and risk assessment programmes, though the findings remain at a conceptual distance from market-ready tools.
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Informing Africa’s tourism sector responses to the IPCC-AR6’s projected climate change impacts remains paramount. This study reviews the evolution of knowledge on climate change and tourism in Africa, examining gaps, scholarship trends and policy issues since the IPCC-AR5 in 2014. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline is used to gather and synthesise the relevant literature. The study observed increased tourism climate change risks, including higher temperatures, more severe droughts and floods, sea level rise, snow melting, coral bleaching and more frequent tropical cyclones. While knowledge of the impacts of climate change on tourism has increased, critical sector gaps remain in some regions and thematic areas. The study, therefore, makes a modest contribution to the literature on tourism and climate change in Africa.
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DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2023.2193355
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