Climate Change And its Impact on Tourism in Switzerland

Running Head: Tourism and Hospitality
Climate Change And
its Impact on
Tourism
Report
System04104
5/20/2019

Tourism and Hospitality
1
Introduction
Switzerland is one of the beautiful European countries on the Earth. The natural
beauty of this country almost attracts every tourism lover in the world. After seeing the
country, one can easily say that Switzerland is the best place on the earth where people can
feel like in heaven. The beauty of the place, natural surroundings, hills, and rivers make it so
wonderful natural place in the world. Large numbers of people are visiting Switzerland every
year to see its natural beauties and enjoy the beauty of real nature. However, from last few
years the number of visitors is declined in the country because of the climate change and
global warming issues. Climate is changing everywhere in the world because of global
warming and it is also affecting the beauty of Swiss Alps (Steiger, Scott, Abegg, Pons, &
Aall, 2017). Swiss Alps shows the beauty of Switzerland to the visitors and tourists who
arrives there for enjoying the weather and natural beauty. However, the increasing
temperature and changing climate in Switzerland is still a problem for its tourism industry.
This report shows the effect of climate change on Switzerland tourism industry. The report
also includes what are the challenges country faces in tourism industry because of climate
and whether change. Further, the report explains various steps and solution to resolve the
identified issues in the report followed by a brief summary on the report.
Travel and Tourism in Switzerland
Switzerland is known for its natural beauty and surroundings of various natural Alps,
hills, river, lakes, etc. The country is surrounding from the ocean and almost all cities best on
the ocean shore, which shows the beauty of nature to the tourists and visitors. The tourism
industry contributes more than 2.6% in the Swiss Gross Domestic Products (GDP). However,
the tourism industry contributes CHF 16.8 billion (2.6% of GDP) in 2016 of total GDP of the
Country, while it was CHF 12.8 billion in 2011 (same 2.65 of GDP) (Han, Lee, & Hwang,
2016). A large numbers of people are visiting every year in the country to see its beauty and
enjoy the nature of the country. In Switzerland, 5.3% of the income generated by the
exporters belongs to the foreign visitors. However, these facts and stats place tourism on the
third places of Swiss exports. However, the decline in the number of customers and
decreasing attraction towards Swiss tourism because of climate change and global warming is
a major issue in the tourism industry in the Switzerland (Baur & Binder, 2015).

Tourism and Hospitality
2
(Source: Nurse, Edwards & Dookie, 2018)
Switzerland is the heart of Europe and it is a landlocked and mountainous country
where the beauty of nature bewitches senses of any nature-loving person. The country is
surrounding from many other countries thus there are multiple culture and language can be
easily observe among the people. The border of Switzerland is attached with France,
Germany, Italy, Austria, and Liechtenstein to the east. The area of this country is 41, 285 Sq.
Kilometres and the country is federal directorial republic with 26 cantons. The biggest city of
the country is Bern which is the capital of Switzerland and two third of the city is covered
with forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and Alps. However, tourism is still a major sector in the
Switzerland economy that contributes in more job creation and creating 4.3% of total Swiss
jobs every year in the country since 2014 (Rogerson, 2016). It can be said that tourism
industry plays a crucial role in the economy of Switzerland and if the country will not care
about the proper care about the climate change, it will affect both tourism industry as well as
the economy of the country.

Tourism and Hospitality
3
Climate Change and its impact on Tourism Industry in
Switzerland
The climate change issues which is raised because of greenhouse gases, excessive air
pollution, and global warming. It not only affects the nature and environment of the whole
world rather it also affects the economy of every country. Climate change affects the
economy of Switzerland in variety of ways and not only hits its economy rather the natural
beauty of the country also in danger because of increasing temperature. However, the direct
impact of climate change has been observed from last few years in Switzerland for example
with regard to agriculture, tourism, forests, and water management and on water sources (de
Freitas, 2017). However, the national trade of the world is also impacted by the climate
change issues and especially it will affect the trade relationship of Switzerland with other
countries. However, the risk identified because of climate change in Switzerland is generally
on health and natural beauty of the place. The increasing temperature of environment effect
the beauty of Swiss alps, increase the temperature of mountains, hill, lakes, and reduce the
water level of rivers and lakes in the country. The impact of climate change and greenhouse
gases on Switzerland tourism industry can be identified under the following points:
1. Increasing temperature leads to decrease in snow cover which further causes
various injuries and death during winter sports like snow skiing.
2. The impact of climate change and global warming also causes floods and which
further causes damages of beaches. It further affects those businesses, which
operates near the beaches such as resort and hotels.
3. Personal and property damages of visitors due to natural calamities like flood
4. Landslides causes many deaths of people in the country
5. Degradation of water, soil, and air quality that later affects the health of tourists
and foreign visitors.
6. Heat waves have been recently noticed by the natural scientist in the country also
a major causes behind decline the number of customers.
There are many adverse impacts of climate change on the tourism industry in the country
and it is a major challenge for the Switzerland government to reduce the impact of climate
change on the tourism industry. Some of the major challenges have been discussed in the
following points: