Heat waves are changing the way we travel. The study "Impact of High Temperatures on Tourist Flows in Urban and Rural Areas" by Man Wei and Tai Huang (Soochow University, 2025) measures the impact of extreme temperatures on tourism in Shanghai and identifies the most effective climate adaptation strategies. In China, a "high-temperature day" is defined as one that exceeds 35 °C, and the study compares these days with days of "normal" temperature.

According to the findings, heat reduces tourist flows in both urban and rural areas, but it hits rural areas far harder. On a hot day, arrivals fall by 179 tourists in urban areas and by as many as 717 in rural ones, while once the temperature reaches 36.9 °C, movement comes to an almost complete standstill.

In the face of extreme temperatures, the distribution of visitors, normally highly varied, concentrates towards the city centre and within specific time slots: urban tourists move their outings to the early hours of the morning, making use of museums and air-conditioned spaces, while rural tourists postpone theirs to the afternoon, after 2 p.m., when the heat eases.

In the city, service quality and economic level carry the most weight and remain stable even under extreme heat, with their influence strongest between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. In the countryside, by contrast, distance from the centre becomes decisive: in the heat, tourists abandon the nearer suburban destinations, often without shade, and choose more distant ones, rich in woods and waterways. The effect is most evident between 5 and 11 a.m.

The researchers suggest that adopting climate adaptation measures can help counter the negative effects of extreme heat. In urban areas, the study focuses on infrastructure and services: expanding green and shaded areas, creating cooling stations, and strengthening air-conditioned indoor attractions such as museums and shopping centres, which become genuine "refuges from the heat".

In rural areas, an ecological approach based on natural cooling works better instead: farm stays, forest tourism, and water-based activities attract those seeking a cooler environment by making use of woods and rivers without major construction. The recommendation is to promote more distant destinations with "anti-heat" holiday offerings that encourage longer stays, boosting revenue, and to improve accessibility and services in remote areas.

To these are added cross-cutting measures: differentiated management of urban and rural areas, real-time monitoring of flows, spreading visitors across less crowded time slots, and emergency plans for extreme heat, up to temporarily closing the most at-risk attractions beyond the critical threshold of 36.9 °C. The expected results are a more resilient tourism sector, less discomfort for visitors, and more balanced development between urban and rural areas.

Tourism is among the activities most sensitive to climate change. According to the Sixth IPCC Report, the intensity, frequency, and duration of heat waves have grown since the 1950s and will continue to rise. The summer of 2024, during which the research was carried out, recorded the highest number of high-temperature days in China since 1961, with Shanghai ranking eighth among cities for maximum temperature.

Shanghai is an ideal case study: China's leading economic hub, it counts 143 attractions rated 3A or above and recorded 330 million visits in 2023, yet its coastal location exposes it to extreme heat, typhoons, and drought.

As measurement tools, the researchers used Baidu mobility big data, which record people's movements hour by hour, focusing on weekends and public holidays from June to August 2024 (28 days in all). The study area was divided into a grid of 500x500-metre cells.

Using a neural network (SOFM), the zones were classified as urban or rural - 840 km2 of urban area, equal to 13.25% of the total - distinguishing 47 urban attractions from 99 rural ones. The Jenks method (JNB) ranked the flow levels, while Pearson correlation identified the key factors, comparing five variables: distance from the centre, attraction grade, services, market size, and economic level.