Tourism Geography II: The Climate and Vegetation of the Continents, Weather and Climate as Tourism Resources, the Physical Geography of India, Tourist Movements and Travel Propensity, and the Environment Act, EIA, EIS, EMS, Carrying Capacity and the Forest and Wildlife Laws

Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a place over hours or days; climate is the average and range of weather over about thirty years. Their elements are temperature, humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind, cloud cover and sunshine, and visibility. For tourism, climate is at once a resource and a constraint. It is a resource because it creates the product: snow for skiing, reliable sunshine for beach holidays, the cool summer air that made the hill station. It sets the season, deciding when a destination can sell. It shapes comfort through the combination of temperature and humidity, which is why a 35 °C day feels tolerable in dry Rajasthan and oppressive on a humid coast. And it brings risk: cyclones, floods, landslides, heat waves and the monsoon closure of trekking routes and national parks.

Zbigniew Mieczkowski's Tourism Climatic Index (1985) combined daytime comfort (maximum temperature with minimum humidity), daily comfort, precipitation, sunshine and wind into one score out of 100 to rate a month's climate for general sightseeing, and it is still used to map how climate change may shift tourist seasons, for example making the Mediterranean summer too hot and extending the season into spring and autumn. Climate change also threatens specific products: low-altitude ski resorts, coral reefs that bleach in warmer seas, and low-lying islands such as the Maldives.

India has a tropical monsoon climate with four seasons: the cold weather season from December to February, with clear skies and mild days on the plains and snow in the Himalaya, which is the peak season for foreign tourists; the hot weather season from March to May, which sends domestic tourists to the hill stations; the south-west monsoon from June to September, the lean season for most destinations but the season Kerala sells for Ayurvedic treatment and the one that turns the Western Ghats green; and the retreating monsoon of October and November, which brings rain to the Tamil Nadu coast. Vegetation follows rainfall: tropical evergreen forest in the Western Ghats, the north-east and the Andaman Islands; moist and dry deciduous forest over most of the peninsula, the home of the big tiger reserves; thorn forest and scrub in Rajasthan and Gujarat; montane forest in the Himalaya and Nilgiris; and mangroves in the Sundarbans, Bhitarkanika and the islands.

India's lakes are distinct tourism products. Chilika in Odisha is the largest brackish-water lagoon in India, known for its winter migratory birds and Irrawaddy dolphins; Loktak in Manipur has floating islands of vegetation (phumdis), one of which forms Keibul Lamjao National Park; Vembanad in Kerala, the longest lake in India, is the heart of the backwater houseboat trade; Sambhar in Rajasthan is the largest inland saline lake; Dal in Srinagar is known for its shikaras and houseboats; Wular in Kashmir is among the largest freshwater lakes; and Pangong Tso and Tso Moriri are high-altitude lakes of Ladakh.

Tourist flows are explained by the interaction of a generating region with a destination region. Demand and origin factors are those in the generating region that create the ability and wish to travel: disposable income, paid holidays and leisure time, population size and age structure, education, urbanisation, mobility and car ownership, exchange rates and relative prices, and the social habit of travel. Destination and resource factors are those that attract: natural and cultural attractions, accessibility and transport links, accommodation and amenities, the destination's image, price competitiveness, safety and political stability, and visa ease. Distance acts as friction: most trips are short-haul, and flows decline with travel time and cost, which is why neighbouring countries dominate most destinations' arrivals. Participation in travel in a population is measured by travel propensity.

Contemporary trends in international movements: Europe remains the most visited region, but Asia and the Pacific has been the fastest-growing source and destination region for two decades, with China the largest spender before the pandemic and India a fast-growing outbound market. The COVID-19 pandemic cut international arrivals by roughly three-quarters in 2020, and by 2024 they had returned close to their 2019 level of about 1.4 billion. Other trends are the shift to online and mobile booking and to independent rather than packaged travel; the rise of experiential, wellness, adventure and culinary travel; short breaks and "bleisure" trips that combine business and leisure; the growth of Gulf and Asian hub airports and of low-cost carriers; and a growing concern with overtourism and sustainability, which has led some cities to limit cruise ships or charge day-visitor fees.

The Environment (Protection) Act 1986, passed after the Bhopal gas disaster, is an umbrella law that empowers the Central Government to take all measures to protect the environment, and the rules and notifications that matter most to tourism are made under it. The Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006 requires prior environmental clearance for listed projects, including large building and township projects such as resorts and hotels above its area thresholds; Category A projects are appraised centrally by the environment ministry and Category B projects by the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority, through the stages of screening, scoping, public consultation and appraisal. The Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019, which replaced those of 1991 and 2011, zones the coast and sets no-development zones measured from the high-tide line, while permitting temporary tourism facilities such as shacks, toilet blocks and changing rooms on beaches under conditions; a separate Island Protection Zone Notification 2019 covers the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.

Physical carrying capacity is often estimated with Cifuentes' formula, PCC = A × (1 ÷ a) × Rf, where A is the area (or length of trail) available, a the area each visitor needs and Rf the rotation factor, the hours a site is open divided by the time one visit takes. A 2,000 m trail on which each visitor needs 2 m, open for 10 hours with a visit taking 2.5 hours, has Rf = 4 and PCC = 2,000 × ½ × 4 = 4,000 visits a day; real and effective carrying capacity then reduce this for weather, fragility and management capacity. The forest and wildlife laws the syllabus names now stand as follows. The Indian Forest Act 1927 classifies reserved, protected and village forests. The Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, which requires central approval before forest land is diverted to non-forest use, was amended and renamed the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 in 2023, and the amendment treats zoos, safaris and eco-tourism facilities as forestry activities. The Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, which provides for national parks, sanctuaries, conservation and community reserves and tiger reserves, was last amended in 2022, reducing its schedules to four and building in the implementation of CITES.