KUPASONLINE.COM — If you want to travel, what’s the first thing you think about? The most important is the cost of course. The tendency of someone to go on a trip is to adjust to the contents of his wallet. This time we will not discuss this, because there have been many articles that explore in detail.
One of the factors for quality tourism activities that we do is comfort. Convenience is not just one factor. Many indicators include the convenience of transportation, the convenience of tourist management services and so on. There is one comfort that we rarely hear about, namely climate or weather comfort.
Indonesia, which has a tropical climate, has many charming tourist areas, especially nature tourism. However, to visit these tourist areas it is still very rare for us or the managers of tourist areas to use climate or weather parameters as a reference for stating the level of comfort. The weather parameters used are air temperature, air humidity, wind, sunlight and rainfall.
We conducted a survey of 793 people in three natural tourism areas namely the Ancol Ecopark which represents the coastal area, the Bogor Botanical Gardens which represents the lowlands and the Cibodas Botanical Gardens which represents the mountainous area.
We use the results of the survey as a reference for comfort based on climate or weather parameters. So that our tourism activities can run according to our wishes, the following conditions can be used as a guide so that tourism activities become comfortable.
Air temperature
From various literatures it is found that the comfortable temperature is in the range of 18º-23ºC. However, the literature used is research in sub-tropical regions. For Indonesia, which has a tropical climate, there is no standard reference for a comfortable air temperature.
The results of our research found that the comfortable temperature for the Indonesian region is 25º-30ºC. To determine what the air temperature is, we can easily find out at this time. Almost all smartphones have a weather application. The application also has forecasts for the next week.
When we asked whether the weather factor had an effect on comfort, more than 97% answered that the weather had an effect on comfort. However, when asked when deciding to visit the tourist area you want to go to, have you considered the air temperature factor? As many as 57% answered yes at the Ancol Ecopark, 39% answered yes at the Bogor Botanical Gardens and 60% answered yes at the Cibodas Botanical Gardens.
It turned out that the majority answered that the visit had considered the temperature factor, namely the coastal and mountainous areas.
Humidity
The comfortable air humidity range is 60% -70%. Air humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. As with the air temperature, we also asked whether visiting tourist areas had considered the humidity factor.
The biggest answer is in the coastal area which is equal to 49% considering the air humidity factor. For lowland and mountainous areas that have considered the air humidity factor, they are only 10% and 17%, respectively. It turns out that according to the perception of tourists that the beach area is synonymous with hot and dry air.
Wind
Wind conditions that are comfortable are low wind speeds of 9 km/h or 2.5 m/s. Similar to the air humidity factor, visitors who consider the wind factor the most when deciding to visit are coastal areas, namely 49%. Furthermore, for the Bogor Botanical Gardens and Cibodas Botanical Gardens, respectively 20% and 32%.
Sunlight
Based on the height of the place (topography), the higher the tourist area, the lower the percentage of tourists considering the sunlight factor to visit. Successively from the coast to the mountains the percentages are 60%, 31% and 23%.
An inconvenient time for traveling is midday in the range from 12:00 to 2:00 pm where the sun has a high intensity. At midday, choose a location that has vegetation such as trees because the function of the tree is as a shade that can reduce sunlight so it doesn’t hit the body directly.
Rainfall
As we often hear the saying, prepare an umbrella before it rains. This means that if it rains then we will not be comfortable to travel. Some natural signs can be used as guidelines, such as the appearance of black clouds or overcast skies. Even though there is also a saying that cloudy does not mean rain, we are still vigilant by bringing an umbrella or raincoat.
What is the impact if we know the weather conditions at tourist sites? The first has an impact on the clothes we will use. Areas that have cold air temperatures, the clothes we wear are rather thick compared to hot air temperatures.
For example visiting the mountains and beaches. Don’t go to the beach wearing thick clothes, and vice versa. So choose clothes according to the air temperature of the tourist area. The next impact is supporting tools, such as moisturizers.
If we know that the humidity in an area is low, then we prepare a moisturizer so that our skin doesn’t get chapped. Furthermore, if we know there will be storm winds or heavy rain, then decide not to travel.(*)
