Impact of Climate Change on Wine Tourism: An Approach through Social Media Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. I was interested in reading this paper after reading the abstract. I have some comments for the author(s) that I hope will be useful as this paper develops.

This paper raises an innovative issue that is rarely studied in traditional literature. Furthermore, the proposal for an innovative methodology is very interesting. The results are presented clearly and the paper presented is very clear and well written. In general, the readability of this manuscript is acceptable.

 

The main weakness of the article is its exploratory nature and that the applied methodology does not allow to obtain more decisive conclusions regarding the tourist seasonal adjustment. To compensate for this limitation, it is recommended to include proposed measures and suggestions from the authors in this regard based on the results of the study. On the other hand, the article seems somewhat unbalanced between the theoretical part and the practical application, so it is recommended that the authors expand the literature review section with a more in-depth review of the works in this regard since only mention is made of  some of them leaving some relevant ones untreated. In addition, it is necessary to add bibliographic references in section 2, in the explanation of each of the study regions since they lack a source of information. Finally, in the conclusions section, it is necessary to add both study limitations and future lines of research.

Author Response

First, we thank the reviewer for the suggestions that allowed us to improve the work. Above all, the remark regarding seasonality allowed us to highlight interesting aspects of our results. The followings are the specific answers to the reviewers’ questions.

Q1. The main weakness of the article is its exploratory nature and that the applied methodology does not allow to obtain more decisive conclusions regarding the tourist seasonal adjustment. To compensate for this limitation, it is recommended to include proposed measures and suggestions from the authors in this regard based on the results of the study.

A1. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted. “The main problem that causes the effects of seasonality is the underutilization of wine tourism infrastructures (tasting rooms, wine routes, etc.) in the low season and the almost total occupation of them in the high season. The deseasonalization of wine tourist flows can help diversify the offer by revitalizing the hinterland, as well as pro-mote job creation and rural development, as stated by several authors[60]. However, wineries have to organize themselves in order to take advantage of the changing seasons in the presence of tourists. The organization of the visit at the cellar door must change in winter seasons due to the shorter hours of light, compared to spring and summer. It will also be necessary to use innovative information technologies [61] to ex-plain the typical seasonal phases of wine production (grape harvesting and wine making).”

 

Q2. … it is recommended that the authors expand the literature review section with a more in-depth review of the works in this regard since only mention is made of  some of them leaving some relevant ones untreated.

A2. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following two paragraphs were inserted. “Recently, with the increased availability of gridded spatial data, there has been an in-crease in the number of studies implementing them. Monthly gridded data were applied to the analysis of the effect of temperature on visitors to National Parks. Fisichelli et al [25] and Coldrey and Turpie [26] employed Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data available globally to 0.5 decimal degrees (approximately 3000 km2 at the Equator and 2000 km2 at 70° latitude) in a regression analysis with the number of visitors surveyed monthly. Although this dataset is spatially coarse, it can be considered adequate at the scale of national parks. Recently, with the increased availability of gridded spatial data, there has been an increase in the number of studies using them on a monthly [25] and daily basis [26,27,28]. Thematic gridded data were employed by Scott et al [27] to formulate the Holiday Climate Index (HCI). The authors employed the dataset for current climate (1961-1990) and future climate change scenarios from the EU-funded ENSEMBLES project [72] at 25 km resolution. Köber [28] used E-OBS gridded dataset version 5.0 on a 0.22° rotated pole grid in order to construct the weather and climate indices used to calibrate our tourism demand models in two regions in Italy and Tunisia.  Finally Perch-Nielsen [29] calculated the Touristic Climate Index (TCI) for tourism in Europe and projected changes under future climate change using daily data from five regional climate models and comparing the 1961-1990 baseline period with the A2 scenario in 2071-2100.” And “Levin, et al. [32, p.122] have "found strong and significant correlations be-tween all crowdsourced data and visitation statistics, demonstrating the potential to use crowdsourced data to characterize the social and perceived importance of protected areas and as a proxy for visitation statistics ". The authors demonstrated the ad-vantages of combining remote sensing data and geotagged photos of Flickr social me-dia to identify the tourist frequency also in order to monitor the impacts from overload. Yoshimura and Hiura [33] and Walden-Schreiner et al. [34] analyzed the rela-tionships between shooting locations of geo-referenced photos of Flickr with the envi-ronmental characteristics of the territory and the presence of infrastructures to provide management strategies for the conservation of natural resources, while providing opportunities for tourism and recreation. Urban green spaces have been also investigated with an ensemble of human niche model [35]. Recently Alampi Sottini et al. [36,37] and Barbierato et al. [38] applied Flickr data to the landscape preferences of wine tourists in Tuscany (Italy).”

Q3. In addition, it is necessary to add bibliographic references in section 2, in the explanation of each of the study regions since they lack a source of information.

A3. Bibliographic references requested by the reviewer have been included.

Q4. Finally, in the conclusions section, it is necessary to add both study limitations and future lines of research.

A4. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted.  “The main limitation of the work is that the result of the model shows that with climate change there will be an increase in the probability of tourism in the five wine regions. The actual possible increase in tourist presence depends on the impacts of climate change on tourist destinations competing with wine tourism. Therefore, further research aimed at developing simultaneous equation models will be needed to study the actual change in tourism flows.”

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors.

Thanks for your paper that in my opinion is interesting and innovative for the methodology applied. I have no relevant remarks and what I suggest is to continue with this approach trying to use alternative social media data due to the limitations that you have highlighted (lines 446-447; 453-454).

Author Response

Thanks for your paper that in my opinion is interesting and innovative for the methodology applied. I have no relevant remarks and what I suggest is to continue with this approach trying to use alternative social media data due to the limitations that you have highlighted (lines 446-447; 453-454).

We thank the reviewer. We will follow his suggestion in planning  future research.

Reviewer 3 Report

Review for Impact of climate change on wine tourism: an approach through 2 social media data:

This paper argues that a better understanding of the potential impacts of global climate change on wine tourism flows is critical because wine tourism is a climate-vulnerable form of rural development. The authors apply a new methodology that combines current daily gridded climate data 13 from the E-OBS project with big spatiotemporal data from the Flickr photo-sharing platform 14 through a generalized additive model to 5 European wine tourism regions. Results show increased probability of wine tourist presence and increased deseasonalization of tourism in all of the regions, and predict peak tourism from summer to spring in 3 of the regions. These findings have policy and development applications for wine tourism regions as they prepare for changes in demand. The proposed methodology can also be applied to different tourism activities in future research evaluating climate change impacts.

General Comments:

Thank you for the opportunity to review Impact of climate change on wine tourism: an approach through 2 social media data. This research makes a convincing methodological contribution on an important topic.  The methodology is clearly explained and the findings answer the questions the authors set out to answer while addressing limitations. This manuscript could be strengthened with some minor revision, particularly related to the literature review and the conclusion. Please refer to the specific comments below for details.

Specific Comments:

• You may want to clarify what you mean by "partially exposed to climatic conditions" (line 52) earlier as it raised questions for me. You address this in limitations, but the clarification could come sooner.
• In the literature review, could you begin with a synthesis/thematic overview of what you review and why? 
• Several qualitative and quantitative literature examples are presented, but is there analysis as claimed (lines 82-83)? 
• What are the weaknesses of the niche model? 
• Feels like the reader needs the climate change ‘definition’ (lines 330-335) much sooner. Could that be brought up to the literature review?
• The literature review has a methodological focus. Are there theoretical considerations that should be covered? 
• Could you specify exactly what you mean by coarse classifications (line 93)? 
• Are there references that should be cited for the introduction to each wine region section 2.1?
• Could the connection between Figure 1. and the description of the steps that follow be made clear earlier perhaps by outlining that these steps are explained in the next section? 
• Could you state/restate the wine tourist thresholds in the section where you explain how your findings show broader climatic thresholds for wine tourists than those used to construct the HCI (line 426)?
• If your research is the first to apply human niche models by correlating Flickr platform data with current and future climate variables (line 119) I think you could claim that more forcefully as a contribution in your conclusion. 
• Is there/what is the significance beyond policy/development application and methodology? 

I also had the following questions as I read, but you largely addressed them in the limitations section:

• Is the number of serious amateur photographers a reasonable proxy for wine tourists more generally? 
• Are you implying that wine tourism demand is 'caused' by climactic conditions? Tourism would increase if the demand for visiting in these new climate conditions exists. 
• What about how the product itself is impacted by climatic conditions? What is the significance of deseasonalizing flows and shifting frequency peak to the spring period (line 432) on practices (grape growing and winemaking) that are inherently seasonal? 

 

Author Response

First, we thank the reviewer for his/her suggestions that allowed us to improve our work. In particular, the comments on the literature review made the text more rational. The followings are specific responses to the reviewer’s questions.

Q1. You may want to clarify what you mean by "partially exposed to climatic conditions" (line 52) earlier as it raised questions for me. You address this in limitations, but the clarification could come sooner.

A1. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted.   “Wine tourism activity takes place partly outdoors (visiting the vineyard) and partly indoors (visiting of the winery and wine tasting); therefore, being partially exposed to climatic conditions, wine tourism is vulnerable to climate.”

Q2. In the literature review, could you begin with a synthesis/thematic overview of what you review and why?

A2. The reviewer is absolutely correct. Since we have not yet unveiled the characteristics of our model the choice of topics for the review is obscure.

We therefore propose to end Section 1.1. with the following sentence: “The overall purpose of this work is to identify the climatic comfort of the wine tourist through a human ecology approach and examine how this comfort might vary with climate change.”

We begin paragraph 1.2. with the following sentence: “The study of the impact of climate change on tourism activities has been addressed adopting a plurality of approaches. In this review, after screening the sparse existing literature on the specific topic of wine tourism, we attempted to categorize the extensive literature related to the impact of climate and climate change on other tourism activities. Finally, we reviewed the existing literature on modeling human ecology in relation to landscape characteristics.”

Q3. Several qualitative and quantitative literature examples are presented, but is there analysis as claimed (lines 82-83)?

The term "analysis" has been replaced with "review".

Q4. What are the weaknesses of the niche model?

A4. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted.   “A limitation of our niche model is that it is based only on meteorological variables and thus does not consider climate and landscape changes simultaneously. This might also be an interesting topic for the future development of this approach.”

 

Q5. Feels like the reader needs the climate change ‘definition’ (lines 330-335) much sooner. Could that be brought up to the literature review?

A5. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted . “Climate change will have a direct impact on the tourism sector in Europe. Temperature increases and changes in rainfall patterns will alter the length and quality of tourism seasons in the region, affecting both the temporal and spatial distribution of flows to different destinations. The latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that, "after 2050, tourism activity is expected to decrease in southern Europe (low confidence) and increase in northern and continental Europe (medium confidence)."

Q6. The literature review has a methodological focus. Are there theoretical considerations that should be covered?

A6. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following paragraph was inserted . “From a theoretical perspective, the study of the relationship between climate change and tourism can be referred to the vulnerability-adaptation-mitigation-response framework.   The difference between climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation strategies is that mitigation aims to address the causes and minimize the possible impacts of climate change, while adaptation looks at how to reduce the nega-tive effects. Finally, response focuses on defining how society governs the impacts of climate change through specific policies. The present research is connected to the di-mensions of impact and adaptation, and the literature review is oriented in this direction.”

Q7. Could you specify exactly what you mean by coarse classifications (line 93)?

A7.  The meaning has been specified.

Q8. Are there references that should be cited for the introduction to each wine region section 2.1?

A8. Additional references have been added.

Q9. Could the connection between Figure 1. and the description of the steps that follow be made clear earlier perhaps by outlining that these steps are explained in the next section?

A9. Figure 1 has been deleted and used only as a graphic abstract

Q10. Could you state/restate the wine tourist thresholds in the section where you explain how your findings show broader climatic thresholds for wine tourists than those used to construct the HCI (line 426)?

A10. The reviewer's suggestion has been implemented

Q11. If your research is the first to apply human niche models by correlating Flickr platform data with current and future climate variables (line 119) I think you could claim that more forcefully as a contribution in your conclusion.

A11. The reviewer's suggestion has been implemented : “Our research is the first to apply human niche models by correlating Flickr platform data with current and future climate variables. This methodology has the advantage that it can be applied globally with very low cost and to many human outdoor recreation activities.”

Q12. Is there/what is the significance beyond policy/development application and methodology?

A12.We have added the following: ”The main problem that causes the effects of seasonality is the underutilization of wine tourism infrastructures (tasting rooms, wine routes, etc.) in the low season and the almost total occupation of them in the high season. The deseasonalization of wine tourist flows can help diversify the offer by revitalizing the hinterland, as well as promote job creation and rural development, as stated by several authors[69]. However, wineries have to organize themselves in order to take advantage of the changing seasons in the presence of tourists. The organization of the visit at the cellar door must change in winter seasons due to shorter hours of light, compared to other spring and summer. It will also be necessary to use innovative information technologies [70] to explain the typical seasonal phases of wine production (grape harvesting and wine making).”