Weather perceptions, holiday satisfaction and perceived attractiveness of domestic vacationing in The Netherlands1

Despite variable and relatively cool summer weather, domestic vacations in countries around the North Sea are an important type of tourism. However, relations between weather and domestic tourism in this region remain understudied. A quantitative research (n=326) among domestic camping tourists in The Netherlands explores perceived personal significance of the weather, operationalized as Weather Salience (WxS), and its relation with attractiveness of domestic vacationing, adaptive touristic behavior and perceived differences between home and destination. Results show that WxS relates positively to attitudes toward domestic tourism and to holiday satisfaction. While higher levels of WxS enhance feelings of being away from home due to the weather, lower WxS increases indifference about holiday weather. Weather differences between home and destination are perceived but depend on region, accommodation type and WxS levels. Implications for (domestic) tourism climatology research are discussed and potential lessons for stakeholders employing tourism activities in temperate climates are provided.


Introduction
Weather and climate have received considerable attention in tourism research in the last decade. They are major drivers for tourist travel (Becken & Wilson, 2013), shape tourist experiences (Jeuring & Peters, 2013) and are part of the imaginaries of destinations all over the world. However, the influence of weather conditions differs considerably per destination and type of touristic activities (Lohmann & Kaim, 1999). In other words, weather impacts are strongly context sensitive. Also, not all places are blessed with favorable climatic circumstances for tourism (Denstadli, Jacobsen, & Lohmann, 2011) and few destinations are able to consistently deliver on promises of blue sunny skies or white powdered mountain peaks. At almost all tourist destinations, variations in the weather may, at times, result in suboptimal, unfavorable and occasionally even dangerous weather conditions (Jeuring & Becken, 2013). Thus, tourism stakeholders need to prepare for and adapt to such weather conditions, either physically or mentally (de Freitas, 2003). In sum, this makes weather variability an important factor to consider for local tourism management stakeholders, for example in terms of providing bad weather facilities (Rauken, Kelman, Steen Jacobsen, & Hovelsrud, 2010), adequate and timely risk communication (Ayscue, Curtis, Hao, & Montz, 2015;Jeuring & Becken, 2013;Scott & Lemieux, 2010) or managing destination images (Hamilton & Lau, 2004).
A particular context pertains to domestic tourism taking place in temperate climates, such as northwest Europe. The weather in this region is highly variable and even in summer 'ideal' weather conditions for tourism and recreational activities are far from guaranteed (Lohmann & Kaim,1999;Matzarakis, de Freitas, & Scott, 2007). It is therefore that many people living there travel South, in search of warmer, drier and more comfortable weather, if only temporarily. Moreover, it has been stated that weather and climate in northern Europe is unfavorable for tourism (Nicholls & Amelung, 2015). Still, domestic tourism in countries around the North Sea is the main 198 type of tourism in these areas, arguably opposing the hegemonic directions of push and pull factors found in many tourism contexts (Prayag & Ryan, 2010). While domestic tourism in northwest Europe is an understudied topic (Canavan, 2015;, the role of the weather in the imaginaries, experiences, motivations and behavior of domestic tourists in this region has received even less attention. An understanding of the role of the weather in this context is of importance for unravelling motivations for domestic non-visitation (Gardiner, Grace, & King, 2015), enhancing tourist experiences in 'suboptimal' meteorological climates, and providing geographically and temporally tailored weather facilities in such regions (Lohmann & Kaim, 1999). Further, various studies mention that tourists from nearby are more likely to cancel a holiday or move on to another destination due to inclement weather or bad weather forecasts (Becken & Wilson, 2013;Denstadli et al., 2011), thus making tourism businesses that mainly depend on proximate tourists especially vulnerable to weather variability. Moreover, weather appears to play an important role in perceptions of geographical otherness and (un)familiarity (Jeuring & Peters, 2013). Since perceptions of otherness are among the core motivations for tourist behavior, weather as a factor affecting the level of perceived (dis)similarity between home and away should be studied in order to better understand domestic tourism experiences.
This exploratory study aims to contribute to tourism climatology research, by focusing on domestic tourism in a temperate climate context. Geographically situated in Fryslân, a province in the North of The Netherlands, the objective is to get an understanding of (1). The personal significance of the weather for Dutch domestic camping tourists; (2). The relation between personal significance of the weather and beliefs, attitudes and intention towards domestic tourism; (3). The perceived impact of the weather on destination choice, satisfaction with, and adaptive behavior 199 during domestic camping holidays, and; (4). Weather-based perceptions of difference between home and away.

Image and experience of domestic, near home tourism
Ever since the arrival of affordable air travel, domestic holidays increasingly seem to have become the less attractive little brother of international tourism. Being able to travel further has not only led to a wider range of destination options and increased global competitiveness between destinations, it arguably has also polarized destination images through associations with geographical distance between home and away Larsen & Guiver, 2013). However, despite the successful framing of tourism geographies along dichotomies where distant places are exotic, different and attractive, and where the proximate is familiar, mundane and to be escaped (Salazar, 2012), domestic holidays are far from obsolete. The contemporary global share of domestic holidays is far bigger than international holidays (UNWTO., 2014), which justifies an interest in the motivations and experiences of domestic vacationers.
Domestic tourism often takes places in a context that is relatively near or even within people's familiar, everyday life environment, hereby opposing the hegemonic imaginary of tourism being a business of travel, adventure and discovery. While this may seem unattractive for some, for others this appears a key motivation to spend a holiday near home: it is the experience of not having to do anything at all that many domestic vacationers seek and appreciate (Blichfeldt & Mikkelsen, 2013), providing a unique experience of freedom (Mikkelsen & Cohen, 2015). At the same time, motivations are very practical, ranging from financial constraints that sometimes even result in a staycation (Bourdeau, 2012;Hall, 2009), to personal limitations due to family circumstances, or a mere preference for 200 familiarity . This does not mean however that what can be called 'proximity tourism' (Diaz-Soria & Llurdes Coit, 2013) or 'microdomestic tourism' (Canavan, 2013) does not allow for experiences of out-there-ness (Elands & Lengkeek, 2012;Lengkeek, 2001), fulfilling needs to escape and a sense of being away from home. To the contrary, in people's busy daily lives, doing nothing (including not travelling) can feel like being in another place (Blichfeldt & Mikkelsen, 2013), while unfamiliarity and otherness can be experienced close to home in many ways (Szytniewski & Spierings, 2014). Similarly, research on domestic vacationers in The Netherlands found that a certain mindset is instrumental to be able to see otherness and difference within familiar environments . Further, research on domestic tourism in Australia highlights generational differences in beliefs and attitudes towards domestic holidays (Gardiner et al., 2015), while such differences were absent with respect to international holidays.
In short, absolute geographical distance and perceived subjective distance are related in non-linear ways (Larsen & Guiver, 2013). This makes the context of domestic tourism both interesting and complex, particularly since it plays out on a spatial scale level where touristic experiences are woven into people's everyday lives. In this proximity tourism context, consumption and production overlap and the development and management of destination imaginaries are co-created and a responsibility of many local stakeholders . A tailored research approach is therefore needed, in order to understand the underlying motivational processes, the experiences and socio-economic benefits found in the context of holidaying domestically and near home. A potentially important factor that has thus far hardly been a topic of research in the context of domestic tourism is the weather. Given the importance of weather conditions in destination image, tourist motivations, experiences and holiday behavior, and the variable characteristics of 201 Northern European weather, an exploration of this nexus seems worthwhile and timely.

Weather and tourism
Relations between weather and tourism are multiple, complex and nuanced. People travel to destinations to experience particular weather conditions, and tourism businesses depend strongly on favorable weather circumstances, be they warm and sunny weather for beach tourism (Moreno, Amelung, & Santamarta, 2008;Rutty & Scott, 2016) or enough snow to cover ski slopes (Gorman-Murray, 2008;Hopkins, 2013;Scott, Gössling, & de Freitas, 2008;Williams, Dossa, & Hunt, 1997). As such, weather conditions both enable and inhibit tourist activity across space and time.
Research on tourism climatology (Matzarakis, de Freitas, & Scott, 2007;de Freitas, 2003) has become a well-established niche in the field of tourism studies. It can be categorized into three fields of interest (Gössling, Abegg, & Steiger, 2016): regional climate indices (Matzarakis, Mayer, & Iziomon, 1999;de Freitas, 1990), weather and climate induced tourism flows (Becken & Wilson, 2013;Falk, 2015;Rosselló-Nadal, Riera-Font, & Cárdenas, 2011), and weather preferences and behavior (Hübner & Gössling, 2012;Lohmann & Hübner, 2013;de Freitas, 2015). Most tourism climatology research acknowledges that the weather is first and foremost experienced on an individual level, in turn impacting the way (groups) of individuals perceive regions and destinations, move within and between places and adapt to physical and psychological weather stimuli. How people respond and adapt to different weather circumstances thus is partly 'a function of an individual's perceptions of weather and climate and, in particular, those aspects they consider to be important' (de Freitas, 2015, p. 2). Stewart's (2009) concept of Weather Salience (WxS), defined as 'the degree to which people are psychologically attuned to and affected by weather and weather changes' (Stewart, Lazo, Morss, & Demuth, 2012, p. 202 172) discerns seven dimensions through which the weather becomes personally significant to people. These include paying attention to weather cues, impacts of the weather on mood, and attachment to weather patterns, hereby reflecting the multiple ways weather conditions are embedded in people's lives. The emerging line of studies employing the WxS concept has thus far not been used as a basis to further the understanding of weather in a tourism context. Neither has WxS, to the authors knowledge, been studied outside of the United States. In the present research, three fundamental aspects of how perceived personal significance of the weather can influence the way tourists make meaning of, and engage with the places they visit are addressed: perceptions of attractiveness, behavioral and psychological adaptation, and perceptions of difference between home and holiday destination.
First, attractiveness of weather conditions can make or break a holiday: "mist in the mountains limits possible vistas that were anticipated for, but an opening in the clouds granting a peek into a valley might be experienced as even more impressive than when seen on a bright sunny day" (Jeuring & Peters, 2013, p. 210). Attractiveness of the weather has been measured objectively, for example by constructing physiological equivalent temperature (PET) indices (Rutty & Scott, 2014;Scott et al., 2008;de Freitas, 1990), but also more subjective methods have been used, such as stated preference surveys (Denstadli et al., 2011). Importantly, preferred and experienced weather conditions tend to be attributed to the spatial context in which they occur, for example in terms of tourism destinations or countries of residence. While evidence for long-term impact on, for example, destination choice is mixed (Gössling et al., 2016;Hübner & Gössling, 2012), weather conditions appear to be an important part of memorized tourist experiences (Gössling et al., 2016;Jeuring & Peters, 2013).
Also, in the ongoing process of building, experiencing and evaluating tourism destinations' attractiveness, the weather often is an 203 important contextual factor, for example affecting the construction of a sense of place (Jeuring & Peters, 2013). For long, many tourism destination marketing efforts have been building on imaginaries that are representing favorable or even ideal weather conditions (Gorman-Murray, 2008;Salazar, 2012), to be found in most tourism brochures and websites. Consequently, the weather has become a part of destination brands and of the image of a place more broadly (Gómez Martín, 2005). In the context of northern European countries -important countries of origin for destinations with warmer and more stable climates-the weather plays an important role both as push and pull factor . Nevertheless, relatively few studies have focused on the attractiveness of temperate climates (Denstadli et al., 2011), particularly in the context of domestic tourism.
Second, behavioral and psychological adaptation pertains to destination choice, travel timing and to adaptation during a vacation.
Strongly motivated by a need for comfort, people are very well able to adapt to various weather circumstances (de Freitas, 2015). In the decision stage this results in evaluating possible holiday destinations in terms of finding a match between preferred and expected weather conditions (next to other factors such as landscape and price (Lohmann & Kaim, 1999)). At destination, behavioral adaptation pertains to using weather forecasts (Ayscue et al., 2015;Becken & Wilson, 2010, clothing choice (de Freitas, 2003) or aligning daily activity schedules and travel itineraries with prevailing weather conditions (Becken & Wilson, 2013).
Psychological adaptation can range from active emotional coping on both the intra-and inter-personal level (e.g., families), to passive acceptance of inclement weather (de Freitas, 2003). In relation to destination image and destination choice, at destination weather conditions that are less optimal than expected can also result in cognitive dissonance (Robert, 1973), with tourists needing to cope with the 204 consequences of the choices they made earlier (e.g., choosing to spend their vacation in a temperate climate). Thus, understanding behavioral and psychological adaptation of tourists spending their vacation in a temperate climate with variable and often relatively cool weather is important to provide those tourists with tools to deal with weather variations during their vacation.
Third, weather conditions can contribute to people's experience of difference between home and away, an important aspect of touristic experiences. When people travel to other places, meteorological conditions can be different from or similar to when at home, familiar when experienced earlier or unfamiliar when not. The weather appears to be one of the ways people make sense of where they are, for example through comparison with earlier experiences (Jeuring & Peters, 2013). As such, the holistic meta image of destinations on the country level is nuanced and specified on the individual level of actual weather experiences, embedded in the local context of holiday accommodations and daily activities. In turn, these specific experiences can be extrapolated to higher level evaluations of destinations and holidays as a whole.
In some places, the experience of inclement weather has become embedded in the local culture, nation state identity and destination image (Endfield, 2011;Harley, Strauss, & Orlove, 2003;Limb & Spellman, 2001). For example, in the context of Europe, people in the United Kingdom have an image of being strongly engaged with the weather (Harley et al., 2003), while similar accounts can be found for people from Benelux countries. This can result in polarized comparisons between country of residence and tourism destinations, with imagined weather differences as representations of distance between home and away, as motivations for travel and as a source for otherness . As such, unawareness of potential microclimatic differences on the intraregional level can lead to ignorance toward the potential attractiveness of near home tourism 205 destinations. At the same time, awareness of and experiencing differences between the weather at home and the weather at a (geographically proximate) destination, can be a relevant source for unfamiliarity and a sense of 'being away from home'. This becomes particularly relevant when considering people's ability to construct comfortable microclimates (de Freitas, 2003), even in atmospheric conditions that seem uncomfortable on a lower spatial resolution.
Given the high exposure to weather conditions (Hewer, Scott, & Gough, 2015), the abovementioned three aspects are particularly relevant for camping tourism in the context of northern Europe, which is arguably challenged by variable and relatively suboptimal weather conditions. This might make spending a domestic vacation in northern Europe potentially less attractive and camping tourists need to have relatively strong adaptive skills in order to cope with weather variability. Also, increased exposure makes weather induced experiences of difference between home and away more likely for tourists spending their vacation on camping grounds than for people who spend their vacation in less exposed environments.
Nevertheless, domestic tourism within countries along the North Sea is an important economic factor, particularly in more rural regions (Bel, Lacroix, Lyser, Rambonilaza, & Turpin, 2015;Canavan, 2015). Predominantly in the summer season, a considerable number of people stay within their country of residence to spend their main holiday, often on camping grounds (Blichfeldt & Mikkelsen, 2013;Blichfeldt, 2004). Some scholars have done fruitful research on camping tourists (Blichfeldt, 2004;Triantafillidou & Siomkos, 2013), but particular attention for the weather in domestic tourism has thus far been limited to only a few studies (Gössling et al., 2016;Hewer et al., 2015;Lohmann & Kaim, 1999;Rantala, Valtonen, & Markuksela, 2011).
Thus, much is to be learnt about the local context of domestic tourism, where people willingly choose to spend their holidays in variable and potentially familiar weather circumstances. 206

Study area
The study was situated in the Dutch province of Fryslân, one of the twelve provinces of The Netherlands (Figure 6.1). Being a generally rural region for Dutch standards, over forty percent of its surface is water, including a major part of the Wadden Sea (World Heritage area). The Southwest of the province has an extensive network of fresh water lakes, embedded in agricultural landscapes with dairy livestock, while its Southeastern part contains large forested areas and is more secluded and patchy. In terms of tourism regions, the province's tourism marketing discerns three areas (Jeuring, 2016), which roughly match the three different regions just described: the Wadden Islands, the Frisian Lakes area and the Frisian Woods area ( Figure 6.1). Situated along the southern part of the North Sea, weather conditions in Fryslân are strongly influenced by its coastal geography. Having a temperate sea climate, winters are relatively mild, even though frosty days with maximum temperatures below zero degrees Celsius occur occasionally.
Maximum temperatures during the summer season tend to be around 20 degrees Celsius, sometimes rising as high as 30 degrees Celsius.
Average monthly rainfall ranges between 60 millimeter and 70 millimeter.
Weather conditions can change quickly throughout the year, even within a couple of hours. Importantly, while summer months are the warmest of the year, they also see most days with rainfall (Sluijter, Leenaers, & Camarasa, 2011).
Peak holiday season is during the summer months July and August (ETFI., 2012) and, similar to other regions on higher latitudes (Denstadli et al., 2011), daily and seasonal weather variability are an important challenge for the local tourism sector (ETFI., 2012). Intraregional variation in weather patterns are often attributable to places' distance from the coast. While the Wadden Islands have arguably lower temperatures in summer than places 207 more inland, they have a higher average hours of sunshine, particularly in the (early) summer season (Sluijter et al., 2011).
After the Second World War, tourism in Fryslân developed significantly, currently generating almost one billion euros on a yearly basis and providing jobs for around seven percent of the Frisian population (ETFI., 2012). Most tourism is domestic, while German visitors are the major group of foreign tourists. Major tourist attractions pertain to rural qualities such as nature, tranquility and 'big skies'. Important touristic activities are soft outdoor activities such as watersports (both on the fresh water lakes as on the Wadden Sea), cycling and beach tourism (ETFI., 2012). Jeuring (2016) and  provide a more extensive touristic profile of Fryslân. The combined characteristics of Fryslân's climate, geography and the importance of tourism for the regional economy, demands for knowledge about the role of weather perceptions of its attractiveness as tourism destination.

Instrument
A printed survey (in Dutch language) was used to measure the following items and scales. Multi-item scales measuring Value Beliefs, Attitudes and Intention towards domestic tourism were adapted from Gardiner et al. (2015) to the Dutch context. Value Beliefs pertained to four dimensions: Emotional Value (five items e.g., 'Taking a holiday in The Netherlands makes me feel good'), Novelty Value (five items e.g., 'Taking a holiday in The Netherlands is something different'), Price Value (four items e.g., 'Holidays in The Netherlands offer value for money') and Quality Value (four items e.g., 'Holidays in The Netherlands offer an acceptable standard of quality').
Attitudes (e.g., 'I like holidays in The Netherlands') and Intentions (e.g., 'I intend to go on a holiday in The Netherlands in the near future') were each measured with three items. Internal reliability ( Table 6.2) of all scales was acceptable to good (Vaske, 2008).
Perceived personal significance of the weather was operationalized through the Weather Salience (WxS) concept and measured with the Weather Salience Short Form (seven items, see Table 6.1), developed by Stewart et al. (2012), a shorter version of the original Weather Salience Scale (Stewart, 2009 A number of items and scales included in the survey are not addressed here as these measures are beyond the purpose of this paper. IBM SPSS Statistics software (version 23) was used for the data analysis.

Procedure and sample
Data collection took place in August 2015 on camping grounds in the province Fryslân. Given the exploratory nature of the study and the main purpose being to get insight in conceptual relationships, a convenience sampling technique was deemed appropriate. Convenience sampling is common in tourism research given the transient character of the population and the logistic complications for reaching this population (Young, 1999).
Potential respondents were approached on seventeen different camping grounds, spread across the three main holiday regions of the province ( Figure 6.1). The camping grounds varied from small nature based grounds to large parks with an abundance of facilities. First, permission was asked from the camping owners to distribute the survey. On two occasions we were not allowed to distribute the survey (both camping grounds being located on the Wadden Islands). In these cases, we moved on to other, similar types of camping grounds. After obtaining permission, guests were approached by explaining the context of the research and were asked if they wanted to participate by filling out the survey. A total of 379 people were approached, of which 344 agreed to participate and the rest declined for various reasons (e.g., no interest, bad timing). While most of the surveys were collected shortly after being filled out, some respondents were given a return envelope, not all of which were actually found back in the researcher's mailbox. Also, after collecting the surveys, it appeared that a

Weather Salience
First, insight in perceived personal significance of the weather was obtained by measuring respondents' levels of Weather Salience (WxS) (  (Loewenthal, 2001;Vaske, 2008). For the purpose of this study, this scale will be referred to as WxS, even though we are aware this does not cover the whole range of WxS dimensions (see also section 6.5).
Subsequently, the sample was grouped into several categories, in order to get more insight in the distribution of WxS and potential differences related to subgroups of respondents, using one-way ANOVAs. Diverging from the findings of Stewart et al. (2012), female and male respondents did not differ significantly. Also, Weather Salience appeared to be unrelated to frequency of past domestic holidays, frequency of past international holidays, household type (with or without kids), age and income. Yet, discerning between type of camping accommodation, people staying in a tent (14.73, SD = 2.66) had significantly higher levels of WxS than people staying in a caravan/motorhome (13.81, SD = 2.71, F(1,318) = 9.02, p = 213 0.003). This points to a relation between weather experiences and holiday accommodation. To look into this relation more deeply, in a number of subsequent analyses distinction will also be made between accommodation types (section 6.4.3). Means with different superscripts are significant at p<.05 based on LSD (item 3 and 7) or Tamhane's T2 (item 1) post-hoc analysis. Items measured on five-point scale (1=Strongly disagree; 5=Strongly agree).

Values, attitudes and intention towards domestic tourism
Next  (Table 6.2).
Post-hoc tests revealed significant group differences for Emotional

Value, Attitude and Intention between people with low WxS and medium
WxS. This indicates that people with low WxS attribute relatively little emotional value to domestic tourism, that they have a relatively less positive attitudes towards domestic tourism and their intention to engage in domestic tourism is lower than people with medium WxS. Note that all groups scored above the scale mean. Interestingly, no significant differences were found between low WxS and high WxS groups. A -not significant-tendency could even be discerned where high WxS respondents scored somewhat lower on each scale than medium WxS respondents. Overall though, a medium level of Weather Salience seems to be most positively related to values, attitudes and intention towards domestic tourism in The Netherlands.

Perceived impact of weather on satisfaction and adaptive behavior
Relations between perceived significance of the weather and perceptions about domestic tourism become more meaningful when something can be said on how weather is dealt with during a domestic vacation. Therefore, by using one-way ANOVAs and post-hoc comparisons, the extent to which 215 levels of WxS were related to perceived impacts of weather on people's satisfaction and adaptive behavior was examined ( Next, for the same seven statements a distinction was made between people staying in a tent and people staying in caravan/motorhome (Table 6.4) by testing group differences with one-way ANOVAs, as these are the two main types of camping accommodation used by the respondents. While more or less the same overall tendencies were found as for the WxS groups, significant differences appeared in the context of holiday satisfaction: positive influence of the weather was significantly higher for people's staying in a tent, while the this was turned around for negative influences. This is interesting, since people in a tent are arguably more exposed to the prevailing weather conditions.

Weather aspects as signifiers of difference between home and away
It was already found that some domestic camping tourists attribute an important role to the weather in their experience of being away from home (particularly when having higher levels of WxS, Table 6.3). In order to find evidence for specific weather conditions underlying these perceptions, weather differences between home and destination were measured for eleven weather aspects (Table 6.5). Overall, while most respondents were able to indicate whether they perceived a difference or not between home and holiday destination, for most weather aspects the majority of the respondents did not perceive any differences. This was not entirely 217 surprising, given the relative similarity of overall climatic circumstances within The Netherlands (recall the geographically proximate context of domestic tourism). However, biggest differences were perceived for wind conditions; stronger wind was perceived more often at holiday destinations, while less strong wind was perceived to be occurring more often at home.
Other weather aspects that people perceived to be occurring relatively often at their holiday destination were comfortably warm weather (possibly attributable to people spending their holiday in the summer season), quickly changing weather conditions and fresh/cold weather conditions. average an opinion about 3.37 (SD = 3.36) (out of eleven) weather aspects.
People staying in a tent (M = 4.28, SD = 3.62) perceived significantly more differences (F(1,307) = 16.74, p = 0.001) than people staying in a caravan/motorhome (M = 2.72, SD = 3.04). When discerning between different levels of WxS, it appeared that the differences between accommodation types were significant for medium and high WxS groups, while no differences were found for people with low WxS (Table 6.6). Testing for an interaction between WxS and accommodation type did however not reveal a significant result. Finally, spatial differences in perceived weather characteristics were examined by comparing perceptions of tourists staying in three different holiday regions within the province of Fryslân (Wadden Islands, Frisian Lakes and Frisian Woods), each with an arguably different microclimate. It has to be noted that the geographical distinction between sub regions is based 219 on regional tourism marketing structures (Jeuring, 2016) and not on climatological data. Thus, while a distinction between islands, fresh water lakes and forested areas has face validity in this context, the division is primarily illustrative for the hypothesis that weather can play a role in people's perceptions of difference between home and away. One-way ANOVAs per holiday region, testing for differences between WxS levels and accommodation types, on the summed total of perceived weather differences did not provide significant results. However, when comparing the regions with each other, it was found that particularly on the Wadden islands (M = 5.4, SD = 3.6) tourists perceive substantially more weather differences, compared with camping tourists in the Frisian Lakes (M = 2.6, SD = 2.6) and Frisian Woods (M = 2.0, SD = 2.8; F(2,307) = 37.87, p = 0.001) areas.
A subsequent distinction between different weather aspects shows that perceived type of weather differences varies considerably across the holiday regions (

Discussion and conclusion
This paper provides insight in the personal significance of the weather among domestic camping tourists in The Netherlands. Employing Weather Salience (Stewart, 2009;Stewart et al., 2012)  The results of this paper should be interpreted in the context of a number of limitations. Levels of Weather Salience among the sample were significantly higher than found in Stewart et al., study (2012) States and also the first to employ it in a tourism context. Based on the findings, WxS appears to be a useful concept that is a valuable addition to the tourism climatology literature. While differences between people with varying levels of WxS were often small, minor effects of weather on tourist experiences and behavior have also been found in other studies (Denstadli et al., 2011;McKercher, Shoval, Park, & Kahani, 2015 Among people who actually chose to go on a camping vacation in The Netherlands, potentially bad weather seems to have little effect on satisfaction. This is in line with other studies' findings (Gössling et al., 2016;Lohmann & Kaim, 1999). Given that Steiger, Abegg, and Jänicke (2016) found that first time visitors are more sensitive to rain compared to repeat visitors, the lack of perceived negative impact of weather can be explained by a more extensive knowledge about the local environment and climate. Another explanation might be found in the lower expectations people have of the weather in The Netherlands, which would align with a 224 study on tourists in Norway (Denstadli et al., 2011). This could also explain why people staying in a tent experienced more positive influences from the weather than people staying in a caravan: when the weather is good, increased exposure to weather has a beneficial effect, while staying in a caravan/motorhome limits the potential of enjoying good weather and from behind the window of a caravan inclement weather might even look extra bad. weather. This can also help mitigating the impact of weather variability on the increasingly ad-hoc vacation decision making behavior that signifies the contemporary -and particularly the domestic-tourism market (Hamilton & Lau, 2004;Rutty & Scott, 2016). We see a task here for tourism entrepreneurs (with support of regional authorities), who are often most knowledgeable about the local circumstances and microclimates.
This paper has shown that weather conditions can -particularly among people with higher levels of WxS-enhance the experience of being 225 away from home. This is an important result, since it demonstrates that weather can contribute to experiences of otherness and escape, or to a sense of (un)familiarity. Similar results were found in an earlier study (Jeuring & Peters, 2013), but weather differences appear to be perceived on the high spatial resolution of a small country like The Netherlands. In terms of specific weather features, our findings align with Lohmann and Kaim, (1999) to the extent that wind was the most noticed weather factor by tourists in northern Germany. However, in using a comparative approach, our study moves beyond the conventional measure of absolute weather experiences as employed in various other studies (Hewer et al., 2015;Lohmann & Kaim, 1999;Rutty & Scott, 2014).
Both type and number of weather related differences between home and destination appeared to vary on a small geographical level, pointing to a potential relevance of the weather for experiences of otherness in proximity of people's everyday environment. Furthermore, the construction of meaning about places through comparison (e.g., between home and destination) that can occur on the very local level, shows a potential for capitalizing on microclimates within tourism destinations.
Hereby, our study could trigger a rethinking of the hegemonic narratives about climate and weather that shape and are shaped by the tourism industry. Climate and weather often have been contributing to a holistic narrative of the home-away binary, hereby in turn contributing to tourism being a business of travel to sunny and warm places, far away from the mundane, boring, cold and rainy home. But in order to do justice to the importance and attractiveness of domestic tourism in temperate climates, and to the individual micro level on which weather experiences take place, a counter narrative of microclimates, individual level coping and nearhome attractiveness seems both promising and necessary.
A number of suggestions for future research can be made.
Measurement of Weather Salience and its dimensionality could be further 226 explored in various tourism contexts. For example, this study's findings could be placed in context of domestic and international tourism of Dutch residents by using larger sample sizes or even a representative sample of the Dutch population. In doing so, differences between WxS levels might be larger than found in this study, since not only the specific segment of camping tourists would be considered. Also, extending beyond camping accommodations and data collection during different types of weather conditions (besides sunny summer weather with above average temperatures) could provide a broader context for interpretation of the findings. This way, too, environmental conditions become more strongly embedded in the research methodology (Lohmann & Hübner, 2013), an aspect of tourism climatology research that deserves more attention. The role of weather in destination choice could be studied further in terms of how weather expectations and experiences affect choosing for a domestic vacation or a destination abroad. Particularly a temporal perspective that takes into account how perceptions change over time could be a useful approach.
Finally, the weather as signifier of otherness and (un)familiarity deserves further attention. For example, future (qualitative) research could get an in-depth perspective on different types of otherness and unfamiliarity that is induced by various weather conditions. A better understanding of weather experiences in terms of otherness and familiarity would be an innovative and thus far hardly explored aspect of how weather affects tourism.
This study aimed to further the understanding of the role of weather experiences in a domestic camping tourism context. Employing a quantitative approach and situated in The Netherlands, the findings of the study contribute to the knowledge about the highly local and contextual impact of weather on people's lives. It can be concluded that Weather Salience, as it is capturing the psychological attunement to weather and 227 weather changes, has a significant but complicated influence on the outdoor tourist experience, even when holidaying domestically and in relative proximity to home.
In exploring the potential contribution of WxS in a domestic tourism context, this study's findings form a basis for further research on the role of Weather Salience in other tourism settings. More generally, the weather should be maintained as a relevant topic for tourism academics and local stakeholders that is best studied in specific, local contexts, for example that of domestic tourism. By contributing to a better understanding of domestic tourist experiences and of associations between people's everyday life and vacation destinations, tourism climatology research highlights the subjective, spatial aspects of the weather. Hereby tourism climatology can become even more strongly embedded in the geography of tourism.