Mapping summer tourism climate resources in China

Climate is an important tourism resource and a vital component of the attractiveness of a destination. Climate has a strong impact on supply and demand in the tourism industry. Most studies concerning the distribution of tourism climate resources are based on point measurements from meteorological stations. Tourism climate distribution maps with high resolution are required. In this paper, the tourism climate index (TCI) and spatial interpolation based on polynomial regression are used to analyze the distribution of summer tourism climate resources in China. The results indicate that there exists an obvious positive linear relationship between the TCI and latitude and a quadratic relationship between the TCI and elevation. The tourism climate is unfavorable in 8% of the study area, acceptable in 34% of the study area, good and very good in 36% of the study area, and excellent in 22% of the study area. From the perspective of climate, the places comfortable for summer tourism are mainly concentrated to the north of 35°N, on the second elevation step, and in the temperate continental climate zone. The tourism climate information provided is accurate at the 90% level for most areas.