Balancing Sustainability and Comfort: Renewable Energy Solutions for Heat-Resilient Tourism Operations

Abstract

With the increase in global temperature, the tourism industry has a pressing issue: ensuring the comfort of its visitors and their survival of business, while promoting sustainability objectives. The nature of tourism is being redefined by heatwaves, urban heat island effects, and growing thermal pressure, particularly in highly populated or tropical urban landscapes. The article will discuss how renewable energy solutions can become a part of the heat-resilient tourism operations to strike a balance between sustainability and the comfort of the guests. The paper combines the existing knowledge on urban climatology, renewable energy systems, architectural innovation, and tourism planning based on a multidisciplinary analysis of 29 recent scholarly sources. Passive and active cooling technologies that use renewables are also highlighted in the study, which can include the use of solar-driven air conditioning, blue-green infrastructure, as well as AI-enhanced climate control systems, and so on. Cities such as Jakarta, Hangzhou, Colombo, Budapest, and Mangaluru used in the case studies illustrate both the spatial and social, as well as policy-based solutions to heat stress. The significance of equity, urban form, and land use, along with behavioral adaptation in creating comfortable, inclusive, and climate-resilient tourist settings, is also discussed in the paper. This research can be incorporated into the discussion on the future-friendly tourism infrastructure by suggesting a conceptual framework that combines energy transition with thermal welfare and city-planning. Recommendations are also made to the policymakers, urban planners, and adaptive tourism developers on how to develop evidence-based and renewable-driven and heat-sensitive strategies at scale.