Evaluation of the tourism climate index in the Canary Islands

Abstract

In this study, we performed a diagnostic and evolutive analysis of the bioclimatology of the Canary Islands, an Atlantic archipelago where the climate itself is a main feature promoting tourism. Among all the tourist-climate indices described in the literature, we evaluated the most widely used, which is the Tourism Climate Index (TCI) proposed by Mieczkowski (1985). Monthly mean TCI time series were calculated using meteorological data from the Spanish State Meteorological Agency database and the European Climate Assessment and Dataset. Our results show TCI values greater than 50 during almost every month in the period 1950–2018, with mean values over the entire time series between 70 and 80. According to the TCI classification scheme, these values correspond to a very good thermal comfort along all of the period. Our results also point to spring as the season with the best TCI, with maximum values around 80 for this index in April—excellent according to the TCI classification. However, we did not find a correlation between inbound arrivals and the TCI index, which might point to a lack of information available to tourists. This opens an opportunity for policymakers and tour operators to better publicize the best seasons for holidays in the islands.