Changing the Story

The Picture and the Place

I deliberately visited Hallstatt in October.

Partly because I was working on my thesis and wanted to observe the village rather than simply move through it, and partly because I had no desire to meet it at the height of the summer crowds.

I thought October would give me room.

It didn't quite work.

By midday, car parks were filling, groups were streaming along the narrow streets and many visitors seemed to be following an almost perfectly efficient route:

car park - famous viewpoint - photograph - car park

There was something strangely familiar about it, as though someone had opened Patricia Schultz's 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, found Hallstatt, and arrived determined to tick the box.

The problem with travelling this way is not that taking a photograph is somehow wrong. I took plenty.

It is what disappears around it.

You don't know whether the coffee is any good in the café you walked past because there wasn't time to stop. You don't discover what is inside the World Heritage Museum. You may not notice the stream slipping between the houses, the plants spilling from balconies or the smaller details that make a village feel inhabited rather than staged.

And in a crowd, there is another danger.

You begin moving at the pace of everyone around you.

I had an advantage that day: I had work to do.

I knew what I wanted to observe, where I needed to go and what questions I was trying to answer. That forced me to resist the flow occasionally and pay attention to what was happening beyond the famous frame.

It also made something unusually clear.

The Hallstatt I had arrived to study and the Hallstatt most people had arrived expecting were not quite the same place.

• One was a living Alpine community coping with the practical consequences of extraordinary tourism pressure.

• The other was an image. Lake. Church tower. Mountains. Still water. Silence. Perfect light.

Every destination exists in both forms. There is the place itself. And there is the story we tell about it.

Climate change is beginning to make the distance between those two increasingly important.

The Story We Sell

Tourism has always depended on imagination. Long before we arrive somewhere, we have already begun constructing the experience. A photograph in a magazine, a postcard, a tourism campaign, a film, a friend's recommendation, a reel saved on Instagram at midnight while planning the next holiday.

These fragments gradually build what tourism researchers call a destination image: the collection of impressions, beliefs, expectations and associations we attach to a place.

Some of those associations are cultural.

• Paris means cafés and architecture.

• The Alps suggest mountain landscapes.

• The Adriatic brings to mind blue water, stone harbours and summer evenings.

• Others are climatic. Sunshine. Snow. Warmth. Fresh mountain air.

Researchers have been discussing climate as part of destination attractiveness for decades. Natural beauty and climate repeatedly appear among the attributes shaping how travellers perceive places, and weather can influence satisfaction as much as the attractions themselves.

That seems obvious once you think about it.

A beach holiday without suitable beach weather is a different product.

A ski resort without snow is a different product.

A walking holiday during days of extreme heat becomes a different experience.

Climate has never simply been scenery.

It is part of the tourism offer.

What is changing now is the stability of that offer.

A 2026 study by Ana Isabel Rodrigues and Nuno Pereira makes an intriguing connection between climate science and destination image. Looking at Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, the researchers explored how projected climatic changes may alter the suitability of Mediterranean destinations for sun, sea and sand tourism — and what that may eventually mean for the way those destinations are perceived and marketed.

Their conclusion is not the simplistic story we often encounter in headlines.

Southern Europe is not suddenly becoming somewhere people will stop visiting.

The more interesting possibility is that the distribution of desirable conditions may change.

• Some months may become more attractive.

• Others may become less comfortable.

• The traditional boundaries of the season may shift.

And if the conditions behind a destination image change, eventually the image itself may need to evolve.

That creates a communication problem tourism has rarely had to confront on this scale.

What happens when the story a destination has been telling for decades is still beautiful...

but no longer tells the whole truth?

When the Promise and the Experience Drift Apart

The Mediterranean summer has one of the strongest tourism identities in the world.

• Blue skies.

• Beaches.

• Warm seas.

• Outdoor dinners.

• Sun-drenched towns.

For generations, sunshine has been positioned almost entirely as an advantage.

More sun meant better weather.

Better weather meant a better holiday.

The message worked because, for millions of travellers, it was also true.

But comfort has limits.

The recent destination-image study applies a tourism climate index designed to assess whether weather conditions are suitable for sun, sea and sand tourism. It considers more than temperature alone, including factors connected to thermal sensation, cloud cover, wind and rain.

The projected results are surprisingly nuanced.

Across the Mediterranean region analysed, the number of days considered climatically suitable does not simply collapse as temperatures rise. Instead, the seasonal distribution begins to shift. Under one of the scenarios examined, May and October gain days with favourable conditions, while very high summer temperatures can push some locations beyond the range considered most comfortable for tourists.

In other words, climate change may not simply reduce tourism suitability.

It may move it through the calendar.

That distinction matters enormously for tourism communication.

If a destination continues presenting July and August as the unquestioned centre of the holiday experience while May, September or October increasingly offer more comfortable conditions, the marketing story gradually moves out of alignment with the visitor experience.

And expectation is powerful.

We tend to judge experiences partly against what we were promised.

• A crowded square is more frustrating when the photograph showed tranquillity.

• A beach affected by erosion feels more disappointing when promotional images suggested endless sand.

• A 38°C city afternoon feels different when the destination was sold simply as "perfect summer weather".

Research into climate communication in tourism repeatedly returns to this tension.

Visitors need inspiration.

But they also need realistic expectations.

The researchers behind the 2026 destination-image study argue that tourism destinations will increasingly need adaptive marketing strategies. Attractive climatic conditions can still be promoted, but less favourable conditions also need to be communicated transparently enough to help visitors make informed decisions and reduce dissatisfaction.

That does not sound particularly revolutionary.

Yet it challenges one of the most persistent assumptions in destination marketing:

that the job of communication is primarily to make somewhere desirable.

Perhaps that is no longer enough.

How Do You Tell the Truth Without Killing the Dream?

This may be one of the most difficult communication problems tourism faces.

Imagine running a Mediterranean destination.

Your economy depends heavily on visitors.

Your brand has been built around warmth, sunshine and outdoor life.

And you now need to acknowledge that increasingly hot periods can affect comfort, health, activities and infrastructure.

What do you say?

"Come here — but perhaps not at three in the afternoon"?

It does not exactly sound like a tourism slogan.

At the same time, pretending that nothing is changing creates a different risk.

Uglješa Stankov and his colleagues explored this dilemma in their work on destination climate change communication. They argue that destination branding and climate communication increasingly occupy the same space: both speak to large audiences, both shape perceptions, and both influence how a destination is understood.

But their objectives can conflict.

Destination branding traditionally tries to simplify.

Climate change does the opposite.

It introduces complexity.

Uncertainty.

Risk.

Responsibility.

Long-term consequences.

Stankov and his colleagues use three archetypal roles to illustrate how destinations can position themselves within climate communication: the villain, the victim and the hero.

• The villain contributes to the problem or communicates environmental responsibility without credible action behind it.

• The victim is threatened by climate impacts.

• The hero demonstrates meaningful mitigation, adaptation or leadership.

Real destinations, of course, are rarely any one of these.

A place can simultaneously be vulnerable to climate change, dependent on carbon-intensive tourism and actively investing in adaptation.

That complexity makes communication difficult.

Too much emphasis on vulnerability risks making the destination appear helpless or undesirable.

Too much emphasis on environmental leadership without credible evidence risks greenwashing.

Too little communication creates another problem: visitors arrive without the information required to understand changing conditions.

The answer, I suspect, is not to make destinations sound less appealing.

It is to make desirability more honest.

A destination does not need to stop showing beautiful beaches because some afternoons are extremely hot.

It might simply need to expand the story.

• Show the morning.

• Show the evening.

• Show the shaded neighbourhood.

• Show the museum people can visit during the hottest part of the day.

• Explain where drinking water is available.

• Suggest the month when hiking becomes enjoyable again.

• Tell people what the destination actually feels like.

  
  

There is nothing inherently unattractive about useful information. Quite the opposite. Done well, it creates trust.

From Promotion to Guidance

Some of my earliest memories of tourism communication have nothing to do with websites or social media. They involve queues. When I was a child, we visited Montserrat with my mother and waited to see the Black Madonna. And waited. And waited. For hours. People became unwell while standing in the queue. Children were bored long before reaching the statue and, by the time we finally arrived, many of us were too tired to appreciate what we had been waiting for.

What I remember now is not only the waiting.

It is wondering how differently people might have planned their day if they had known.

Some would still have joined the queue.

For many visitors, seeing the Black Madonna would have remained essential.

Others might have explored the monastery, walked somewhere else, had lunch first or returned at another time.

Information would not have made the attraction less important. It would simply have allowed people to make a better decision.

That distinction becomes increasingly relevant in a changing climate.

Good tourism communication does not only persuade us to go somewhere. It gives us enough information to experience the place well once we arrive.

This is where climate services for tourism become particularly interesting.

Research led by Alba Font Barnet examined how climate information could be turned into practical services for different types of European tourism destinations, including Barcelona, Mallorca, the Aragonese Pyrenees and Sila National Park in Italy.

The underlying principle is simple: raw climate data are not automatically useful information. The information has to be translated. A temperature forecast might matter differently to a hotel, a hiking guide, a destination manager and a traveller planning a city walk.

Different tourism activities also depend on completely different atmospheric conditions.

• What works for skiing does not work for a beach holiday.

• What works for sightseeing does not necessarily work for cycling.

I notice this every time I sail.

"Sunny, 30°C" sounds like an excellent forecast for a summer holiday.

From a sailing perspective, it tells me remarkably little.

I want to know the wind direction.

Wind strength.

Gusts.

Possible storms.

Local patterns.

Wave conditions.

Suddenly one general weather app becomes several: Windy, local forecasts and whatever source is most reliable for the stretch of water we are actually sailing.

The weather has not changed. The meaning of the information has. The climate-services research reaches a similar conclusion. Useful climate information needs to be tailored to the activity and the user. Researchers worked with tourism stakeholders to identify not only which conditions affected different activities, but also what information people needed, when they needed it and how it should be delivered. Web. App. Bulletin. Daily update. Seasonal information.

The format matters because communication is part of the service.

For tourism, this creates a fascinating possibility.

A destination website of the future may not simply tell us what attractions exist.

It may increasingly help us understand when and how to experience them.

Can Instagram Adapt?

There is a reason Hallstatt looks so powerful on social media. It is extraordinarily photogenic. One composition can contain almost everything we associate with an Alpine idyll: water, mountains, historic architecture and a church tower perfectly positioned against the landscape.

But a photograph can exclude almost everything else.

Traffic.

Noise.

Queues.

Tour groups.

Residents trying to go about their day. And increasingly, images themselves can be altered with extraordinary ease. Crowds can disappear. Skies can become more dramatic. Light can be perfected. An already beautiful destination can be made almost unreal.

This does not make social media uniquely deceptive. Tourism has always selected its most appealing images. Nobody expects a hotel brochure to feature the service entrance.

What is changing is the scale and precision with which an idealised destination can now circulate.

And at the same time, visitors increasingly depend on digital platforms for practical information.

This creates an uncomfortable question.

Can the same channel that sells the dream also explain the conditions?

A 2025 study by Assumpció Huertas and colleagues analysed climate-change communication on official Twitter/X accounts belonging to Spanish coastal destinations. The researchers examined 178,677 posts across the accounts included in the study period and found that climate-related communication represented only a small share of overall output.

Even more revealing was who was communicating. Among the climate-related posts analysed, city council accounts were responsible for the overwhelming majority, while destination marketing organisations contributed far less.

The researchers found that mitigation and adaptation received more attention than climate impacts and causes, but overall climate communication remained limited. Heatwaves, drought and beach erosion — highly relevant issues for coastal tourism — were notably underrepresented in the content.

The study raises an intriguing contradiction.

A municipality may be adapting infrastructure or managing climate-related challenges...

while the tourism account continues largely presenting the destination as though those changes do not exist.

The city communicates one reality.

The visitor brand communicates another.

That gap matters because tourists form perceptions from the information they receive.

Research cited within the study suggests that incomplete or poorly timed climate information can leave visitors less prepared, while useful information can support adaptation and help manage risk perception.

Perhaps social media does not need fewer beautiful images.

Perhaps it needs more complete stories around them.

• The shaded street behind the famous square.

• The evening swimming spot.

• The drinking fountain.

•  The museum worth visiting at midday.

• The trail that works better in the morning.

• The September festival.

• The alternative beach when another is overcrowded.

None of those makes a destination less desirable. They make it more usable.

A Better Story Does Not Have to Be a Worse Story

Whenever tourism adaptation is discussed, the language can quickly sound like sacrifice.

Avoid this. Limit that. Don't travel then. Stay inside now.

It is not difficult to understand why destinations hesitate. People do not plan holidays because they want to practise climate resilience. They want something to look forward to. But adaptation does not have to mean replacing inspiration with warnings. It can mean changing the definition of what is desirable.

For decades, the classic Mediterranean image was the midday beach beneath uninterrupted sunshine. Perhaps another version of summer becomes equally appealing.

• Coffee in an almost empty square at seven in the morning.

• A long lunch while the streets slow down.

• Swimming later in the afternoon.

• Walking through the old town after sunset.

• Travelling in May.

• Returning in October.

The experience is not necessarily smaller. It is simply organised around a different rhythm. My Hallstatt visit was already a small example. I chose October because I expected the experience to be better outside the summer peak. I was not trying to avoid the destination. I wanted more from it.

That distinction matters because some conversations about climate-conscious travel wrongly assume that the traveller is being asked to accept a worse holiday for ethical reasons.

Sometimes the opposite may be true. Changing the timing can improve the experience. Changing the route can improve the experience. Walking beneath trees rather than across an exposed square can improve the experience. Spending two hours somewhere instead of rushing through six attractions can improve the experience.

Climate adaptation and visitor satisfaction are not necessarily competing objectives. Often, they may point in the same direction. And that may be the greatest opportunity for destination storytelling.

Instead of selling adaptation as restriction, destinations can communicate better ways of experiencing the place.

The facts have not changed.

The story has.

Hospitality Begins Before Arrival

Travelling with Hana has made me appreciate useful destination communication more than almost anything else. When you travel with a dog, beautiful photographs solve very few practical problems.

• Can she stay at the hotel?

• Can she use public transport?

• Is the trail suitable?

• Are dogs allowed near the lake?

• Is there water?

• Will we spend an hour walking across exposed ground before reaching shade?

These questions determine whether a destination works for us long before we arrive. Austria has repeatedly stood out in my own travels because dog-friendly information is often relatively easy to find. Hiking routes, accommodation and local rules are frequently communicated clearly enough that planning does not feel like detective work.

That is only my observation, not a comparative study. But it has changed how I think about destination communication. When a place gives you the information you genuinely need, it communicates something beyond the facts themselves.

It says:

we understand how you will actually experience this place.

Climate adaptation may require exactly the same mindset.

A visitor does not necessarily need a lecture on atmospheric science.

This is where destination communication starts to resemble hospitality. Hospitality does not begin at hotel reception. It begins when someone helps you prepare for the experience ahead.

A Globelogue way of looking at future destination communication

Perhaps good tourism communication will increasingly perform five jobs.

Inspire - it still needs to make us curious about the destination.

Inform - it gives us accurate, relevant information rather than forcing us to search across ten different platforms.

Prepare - it helps visitors understand conditions before they arrive.

Redistribute - it introduces different times, routes, neighbourhoods and seasons rather than directing everyone towards the same famous place at the same moment.

Interpret - it helps us understand what we are looking at — the landscape, the community, the limitations and the rhythms of the place.

Promotion does not disappear. It simply becomes part of something larger.

From Weather Data to Visitor Information

There is another reason this shift matters. We have more information than travellers in any previous generation. Hourly forecasts, satellite maps, air-quality readings, heat alerts, rain radar, live webcams, trail reports, wind models, crowd information, transport apps.

Yet more data do not automatically create better decisions.

The climate-services study highlights exactly this problem. Tourism stakeholders often rely on short-term weather forecasts that are fragmented, poorly contextualised or not designed for the specific needs of their activity. Anyone who has tried to plan an outdoor day knows the feeling.

A weather app shows 31°C.

Fine.

But what does that mean?

Thirty-one degrees in a shaded forest?

Thirty-one degrees on a stone square?

Thirty-one degrees on a ridge without trees?

Thirty-one degrees with wind?

Thirty-one degrees with high humidity?

The number is identical. The visitor experience is not. This is where destination communication can add value that weather apps alone cannot.

A destination understands its geography.

Its streets.

Its trails.

Its seasonal patterns.

Its infrastructure.

Its local businesses.

Its transport.

Its shaded places.

Its exposed places.

Its alternatives.

Turning climate data into tourism communication means combining meteorological information with knowledge of the place.

Not simply:

34°C tomorrow.

But perhaps:

If you're planning the ridge walk, start early; the route is exposed after mid-morning.

Or:

Museums remain open through the hottest part of the afternoon, while the old town becomes more comfortable again in the evening.

Or:

For cyclists, the riverside route offers more shade than the open valley road.

This is not sophisticated climate science. It is sophisticated hospitality. And sometimes the most useful innovation is not another app. It is better interpretation.

Communication Is Part of Adaptation

For a long time, climate adaptation in tourism has been discussed mainly through physical interventions. Shading, cooling, water management, green infrastructure, building design, wildfire management, coastal protection, changes to ski infrastructure. These remain essential. Communication cannot replace them.

• A tourism campaign cannot cool a square.

• An Instagram post cannot stop beach erosion.

• A visitor information page cannot create water where none exists.

But communication can influence how existing infrastructure is used.

• It can change timing.

• Routes.

• Expectations.

• Behaviour.

• Demand.

That makes it part of adaptation rather than merely commentary about adaptation. The Spanish coastal destination study makes this particularly clear. Its authors argue that destinations should communicate not only climate impacts but also the adaptation measures being taken, because visitors need to know that adapted services exist.

That information can affect both perceived risk and practical behaviour.

Yet their analysis suggests that much of this communication is still missing from tourism-facing channels.

This may be one of the next important tasks for destination management. Adaptation is not complete when something has been built. It becomes useful when people understand how to use it.

• A refill station nobody knows about has limited value.

• A shaded route buried inside a municipal planning document does little for visitors.

• A changed opening schedule matters only if travellers see it before organising their day.

Infrastructure and communication have to meet.

Changing the Story

I went to Hallstatt expecting to study tourism communication. What I discovered was how profoundly communication affects the way we look at a place.

The famous image directs us towards the famous viewpoint. → The famous viewpoint attracts more photographs. → Those photographs reinforce the image.

And the cycle continues. Meanwhile, an entire destination exists outside the frame. This is not unique to Hallstatt. Every successful tourism story eventually begins influencing the behaviour it originally tried only to inspire.

That gives destination communication considerable power. It can direct people towards one street or another. One month or another. One attraction or another. It can concentrate visitors. Or distribute them. It can create expectations. Or adjust them. It can encourage people to consume a place quickly. Or help them understand it.

Climate change adds a new layer to that responsibility. If warmer summers, extreme conditions and shifting seasons change how destinations are experienced, continuing to tell exactly the same story may eventually become less useful to travellers and less sustainable for the places themselves.

But changing the story does not mean abandoning what made those places desirable. Hallstatt will still have its lake. Mediterranean towns will still glow in the evening. The Alps will still draw hikers. European cities will still invite us to walk.

What changes is the context. Perhaps the destination stories of the future will become more specific. More seasonal. More honest. More helpful. Less obsessed with presenting a place under permanently perfect conditions. More interested in showing us how to experience it well. And perhaps that is the quiet shift already beginning inside tourism communication.

From:

Come here.

Towards:

Come here — and this is how to make the most of being here.

That is not weaker marketing.

It may be better tourism.