THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE AND RAINFALL VARIATIONS ON TOURISM IN MANGOCHI

The solely aim of this research was to discuss potential implications of temperature and rainfall variations on tourism that Mangochi district has to anticipate, since it was noted by the researcher that despite the understanding of local weather by tourism operators there was still lack of knowledge and awareness of upcoming weather and climate scenarios and its significance to the tourism business in the district. The study used a quantitative approach, whereby historic data of temperature and rainfall from Mangochi was collected from the DCCMS and online climate models were run. The researcher analyzed both the temperature and rainfall data by plotting time series using Excel Microsoft 2016, performed trend analysis using Mann-Kendall test by RStudio version 1.4.1106.0 and produced models of temperature and rainfall. Based on the results found it has been observed that both the annual maximum and minimum temperature trends were making a very significant increase. On the other hand, rainfall showed a great variations and a tendency of decreasing though not significant on annual basis. The models projected an increase and decrease in temperature and rainfall respectively. These means that the district has to anticipate high temperatures which will bring discomfort among tourists and heat related hazards and while on the other hand rainfall patterns will continue with its tendency of variation and decrease in amount which will affect food supply for hospitality businesses. This will affect the choice of the district and period of stay for tourism activities. Therefore, anticipatory measures such as: provision of more shaded areas with a natural air flows and design hotels and lodges that will offer cool places were suggested. The study recommended that weather and climate information needs to be made available to the tourism business operators for planning purposes and further studies on how tourism does also contribute to climate change.

The solely aim of this research was to discuss potential implications of temperature and rainfall variations on tourism that Mangochi district has to anticipate, since it was noted by the researcher that despite the understanding of local weather by tourism operators there was still lack of knowledge and awareness of upcoming weather and climate scenarios and its significance to the tourism business in the district. The researcher analyzed both the temperature and rainfall data by plotting time series using Excel Microsoft 2016, performed trend analysis using Mann-Kendall test by RStudio version 1.4.1106.0 and produced models of temperature and rainfall. These means that the district has to anticipate high temperatures which will bring discomfort among tourists and heat related hazards and while on the other hand rainfall patterns will continue with its tendency of variation and decrease in amount which will affect food supply for hospitality businesses. The study recommended that weather and climate information needs to be made available to the tourism business operators for planning purposes and further studies on how tourism does also contribute to climate change.

This study was conducted in Mangochi district. Mangochi is one of the lakeshore districts in Malawi and is located in the southern region of the country, at southern end of lake Malawi in particular. The main economic activities in the district are farming which is mostly done by the smallholder farmers, fishing and tourism activities. Mangochi borders with Machinga to the south-east, Ntcheu, Dedza and Balaka to the south-west, Salima to the north-east and international border with Mozambique to the east.

Traditional authority: TA Mponda

District: Mangochi

Coordinates: -14.4438, 35.14705