Case studies Air Quality – Both Challenge and Interest of Tourist Destinations

Tourism and travelling have become an important part of modern-day life, but they, among many positive, have a number of negative consequences. Environmental impact is probably the most obvious one. It consists of many different aspects, such as depletion of natural resources like water and land, discharging waste, pressure on endangered species, noise pollution, carbon footprint and many others. One of the aspects which is hard to notice at first is the impact on the air quality.

Dubrovnik is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the Europe, known for it's beauty and rich history. It is also the most visited city in Croatia when it comes to cruise visits, counting over 500 cruise visits per year (519 visits in 2019¹), almost double than Split, the next city on the list (267 visits in 2019¹). Since cruise vessels are known as high pollutant producers², it comes as no surprise that Dubrovnik officials decided to monitor their impact on air quality in the city. As part of Inter-pass project, Dubrovnik Port Authority has installed our Smart Sense station Sensees.Environment for indicative air quality measurements. 

Sensees.Environment keeps track of multiple parameters, from concentration of particles (PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10) and various gases like CO, SO₂, NO, NO₂ and O₃ to levels of temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure. It can be integrated with additional sensors for noise and precipitation levels, wind speed and direction, and level of electromagnetic radiation. It sends measurement data to central cloud system which enables real-time monitoring and air quality data analysis. 

Importance of clean air is obvious when it comes to health and life quality, but research also show it's influence on tourist demand. High levels of SO₂, PM2.5, PM10 and NO₂ have strong negative impact on the number of tourist in that area³. This is additional reason why it is extra important for tourist destinations to monitor their air quality and we are glad that we can help Dubrovnik in maintaining balance between pursuing successful tourist seasons and preserving clean environment.

1 – Foreign vessels on cruise in the Republic of Croatia 2019 - LINK

2 – Cruise Ship Pollution is Causing Serious Health and Environmental Problems, Forbes 2019 - LINK

3 – The impact of air quality on tourism: a systematic literature review - LINK