A Conceptual Model of Climate-Induced Tourist Mobility: Understanding the Coolcation Shift

This paper introduces a comprehensive conceptual model to elucidate climate-induced tourist mobility, focusing on the emergent “coolcation” phenomenon driven by rising global temperatures and climate variability. The model integrates three core components—climate stability, health risk perception, and adaptive infrastructure—to explain their combined influence on destination attractiveness and evolving tourist behavior. By incorporating dynamic risk thresholds and destination repositioning strategies, it captures how tourists increasingly shift toward cooler, climate-resilient destinations, prompting spatial redistribution and cross-border spillover effects in tourism flows. The framework offers strategic insights for destination managers and policymakers, emphasizing the need for adaptive infrastructure investment, coordinated regional governance, and proactive planning to enhance resilience and sustain competitiveness in the face of climate challenges. The paper concludes by advocating for interdisciplinary empirical research to validate the model and explore long-term implications of climate-driven tourism migration under evolving environmental scenarios.