The Heritage Climate Index (HERCI): Development, Assessment and Application for Tourism Purposes in Geoheritage and Cultural Heritage Sites

The development of climate indices and their application can influence the preferences of tourists and the time frame for visiting the locality. This study develops a new Heritage Climate Index (HERCI) that finds its application in assessing climate comfort for visiting geoheritage and cultural heritage objects. The study analyzed the geoheritage site in Western Serbia (Stopica Cave) and the cultural heritage site in Eastern Serbia (Golubac Fortress). The index was developed to represent climatic comfort on a monthly basis and consisted of five climatic elements. The values of the HERCI index were obtained based on the multi-criteria decision-making model-the Best-Worst method (BWM). The results were classified into five classes, depending on the degree of conformity. After a comparative analysis of the index results for four localities and their attendance for the period 2012-2021 and 2019-2022, it was determined that there is a very high level of correlation (>0.9). This is the first study to use the BWM to develop and analyze a climate index. From the aspect of tourism policy, this study significantly contributes to tourism organizations and tourists in better understanding climate comfort and making decisions about the organization's time frame and realization of the travel.