ASSESSMENT OF ADAPTATION STRAIN DURING TOURISM ACTIVITY

During last decades tourism activity increases all over the world. According to United Nation World Tourism Organization international arrivals have raised from 436 million in 1990 to 1095 million in 2012. For people travelling at long distances very important is information about climate contrasts they can experience in comparison to home location and their organisms must adapt to new climate stimuli. In general, increase in differences of climate stimuli intensifies magnitude of adaptation processes in an organism. Several adaptation strategies of human organism to varied atmospheric stimuli were defined. The special attention is paid for physiological and behavioural costs to keep homeothermy, i.e. constant core temperature (about 37ºC) in different thermal environment. Till now few adaptation indices were proposed. However, each of them has advantages and weaknesses. BD and ATSI are mostly dedicated to cold climates. BCI can be used in wide range of environmental conditions but it uses non normalized values of partial components and in specific weather situations its values are unrealistic. In the present research Adaptation Strain Index (ASI) was applied. It includes several physiological and behavioural reactions which are crucial to adapt to new thermal conditions, i.e. water loss, clothing insulation and, thermal stress caused by atmospheric stimuli. ASI index was applied to validate adaptation strain which occurs at tourists travelling between Mediterranean region and central and northern European cities. Both, spatial and temporal patterns of adaptation strain were analysed and discussed. Summer was found as the season with the most spatially differentiated adaptation strain. However, in winter great spatial and temporal (day to day changes) adaptation needs were noticed.