An examination of the tourism climate index in Turkey

Tourism, which has become the world's most important industry, is strongly influenced by climate and weather conditions. Since the tourism sector is very important for Turkey's economy, the goal of this study is to examine the relationship between climate and tourism and the impact of climate on tourism using Mieczkowski's Tourism Climatic Index (1985) to explore climate suitability for tourism in Turkey's coastal zones. This paper describes the spatial variation of climate suitability for tourism in Turkey. The spatial variation of TCI values is presented for 97 stations during the period 1975-2006. Moreover, in order to understand the impact of climate change on the TCI for coastal zones in Turkey, we compare the periods 1975-1990 and 1990-2006. Finally, relationships between tourism and climate are obtained for the study regions. This study will contribute to the tourism sector in terms of climate suitability and increasing tourism awareness of Turkey.