3. Method
3.1. The tourism climatic index
The Tourism Climatic Index (TCI) was developed by
Mieczkowski (1985) as the first ever evaluation of the suitability of
the world’s climates for the purpose of general tourism activity.
Thus, the TCI was designed to encompass the most commonly
engaged in tourist pastimes such as sightseeing, shopping, and
other outdoor activities involving low to moderate levels of physical exertion. The index is based on monthly means for seven climatic variables, namely: (i) maximum daily temperature; (ii) mean
daily temperature; (iii) minimum daily relative humidity; (iv) daily
relative humidity; (v) precipitation; (vi) daily duration of sunshine;
and, (vii) wind speed. Five other variables deemed theoretically
relevant to tourism comfort and well-being were excluded due to a
lack of sufficient data with which to construct the index. Of the
seven remaining variables, Mieczkowski related the first four to
thermal comfort, with (i) and (iii) forming a daytime comfort index
(representing conditions between noon and 4pm, when tourists
tend to be most active outdoors) and (ii) and (iv) a daily comfort
index (representing conditions over a full 24-h period). The seven
variables were then weighted by Mieczkowski, according to their
relative influence on tourist well-being, to form the final index: