Ski tourism is a multi-billion dollar international market attracting between 300 and 350 million annual skier visits. With its strong reliance on specific climatic conditions, the ski industry is ...regarded as the tourism market most directly and immediately affected by climate change. A critical review of the 119 publications that have examined the climate change risk of ski tourism in 27 countries is provided. This growing and increasingly diverse literature has projected decreased reliability of slopes dependent on natural snow, increased snowmaking requirements, shortened and more variable ski seasons, a contraction in the number of operating ski areas, altered competitiveness among and within regional ski markets, and attendant implications for ski tourism employment and values of vacation property real estate values. The extent and timing of these consequences depend on the rate of climate change and the types of adaptive responses by skiers as well as ski tourism destinations and their competitors. The need to understanding differential climate risk grows as investors and financial regulators increasingly require climate risk disclosure at the destination and company scale. Key knowledge gaps to better assist ski tourism destinations to adapt to future climate risk are identified.
Climate change risk has gained considerable attention within the ski industry and its investors. Several past studies have overlooked the adaptive capacity of snowmaking and within-season demand ...variation and therefore overestimated climate change impacts. This study of the Austrian ski market (208 ski areas) including snowmaking found impacts are substantial and spatially highly differentiated, but nonetheless manageable (season length losses of 10–16%) for the majority of ski areas until the 2050s under a high emissions pathway (RCP 8.5) or even the 2080s in a low emission pathway (RCP 4.5). The economic impacts of reduced operations are largely concentrated in regions less dependent on tourism. Preserving this sector in high-risk areas can be considered maladaptive, but may be important to maintain demand. A sustainable end-of-century future for a high proportion of Austria's ski areas is dependent on achieving the low-emission future set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.
•The severity of projected climate change impacts depends on the ski industry performance indicators used.•The critical importance of snowmaking as a climate adaptation to reduce climate risk is demonstrated.•Projected climate change impacts are spatially highly diverse and highest in less-winter tourism dependent municipalities.•Destination competitiveness and reputation will be affected, with consequences for shareholders and public authorities.•Greater snowmaking is required to preserve ski season length and analysis of water access and storage should be a priority.
Weather and climate are important factors for travel decision-making and overall tourist satisfaction. As central motivators for destination choice, they directly and indirectly influence demand ...patterns and can be a resource and limitation for tourism at the same time. In this paper, results of an in-situ survey of mountain summer tourists (n = 733) in the Alps in Southern Germany are presented. Respondents rated ‘rain’ as the most important aspect of weather during their holiday. During a 7-day holiday, 2.1 days of continuous rain are accepted, and 3.1 days of days with thunderstorms. The ideal temperature range is between 21 and 25 °C, thus lying 4–7 degrees lower than for beach tourism. Temperatures below 15 °C and above 30 °C are perceived as unacceptable. Statistically significant differences were found for several tourist types: Older tourists are more sensitive to heat, tourists with sports activities are more tolerant to cool temperatures, first-time visitors are more sensitive to rain and families with children prefer higher temperatures. From the results, some implications for mountain destinations arise: mountain destinations could be promoted as a heat refuge, and attracting sports tourists might be a promising way to reduce weather sensitivity; however, some variety of well-promoted weather independent attractions seems to be mandatory.
The importance of weather for tourism is now widely recognized. However, no research has so far addressed weather events from retrospective viewpoints, and, in particular, the role of “extreme” ...events in longer-term holiday memories. To better understand the character of ex post weather experiences and their importance in destination image perceptions and future travel planning behavior, this exploratory study addressed a sample of 50 tourists from three globally important source markets: Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Results indicate that weather events do not dominate long-term memories of tourist experiences. Yet, weather events are important in shaping destination image, with “rain” being the single most important weather variable negatively influencing perceptions. Results also suggest that weather events perceived as extreme can involve considerable emotions. The study of ex post traveler memories consequently makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the complexity of “extreme weather” events for tourist demand responses.
Winter, snow, and mountains, epitomized by the world-renowned Rocky Mountain range, are an integral part of Canada’s sport-culture identity and international tourism brand, yet the climate change ...risk posed to this important ski tourism region remains uncertain. This study used the ski operations model SkiSim 2.0 to analyze the climate risk for the region’s ski industry (26 ski areas in the province of Alberta and 40 in British Columbia) with advanced snowmaking, including changes in key performance metrics of ski season length, snowmaking requirements, holiday operations, and lift and terrain capacity. If Paris Climate Agreement targets are met, average seasons across all ski areas decline 14–18% by mid-century, while required snowmaking increases 108–161%. Regional average operational terrain declined only 4–9% in mid-century, as the largest ski areas were generally more climate resilient. More pronounced impacts are projected under late-century, high-emission scenarios and in low latitudes and coastal British Columbia regions. When compared with continental and international ski tourism markets, Western Canada has relatively lower climate change impacts, which could improve its competitiveness. The results inform further research on demand-side as well as the winter sport-tourism industry and destination-scale climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Tourism is an important source of income for many mountain communities in Nepal. However, the tourism industry is highly vulnerable to a variety of natural hazards. The ability of local people to ...proactively prepare, protect, and support prevention activities against natural hazards drives a mountain community's resilience. Research on whether and to what extent people have adopted such proactive behaviors has shown that human action is determined not only by sociodemographic and socioeconomic conditions—such as age, gender, or income—but also by values and worldviews. In this paper, we present data from a 2-phased survey of 160 lodge owners conducted in 2017 and 2018 in Mustang, Nepal, focusing on lodge owners' activities in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and their values and worldviews. Classifying the preparedness and support for prevention (PSP) activities of lodge owners, we found 3 different PSP types. In a second step, these PSP types were contrasted with values and worldviews held by the lodge owners, as well as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. This revealed strong correlations between the lodge owners' values and their PSP type. These results indicate that when trying to explain an actor's DRR activities, his or her values might be as important as commonly used sociodemographic and socioeconomic indicators. We argue that a holistic concept of resilience—combining actors' values and worldviews as well as their sociodemographic and socioeconomic status—can strengthen efforts to build resilience.
In this paper, the development and validation of a ski season simulation model (SkiSim 2.0) is described and results of the climate change assessment for 3 ski areas in Tyrol, Austria, are presented. ...The results of the validation process suggest that SkiSim 2.0 is an appropriate tool to simulate ski season lengths and snowmaking requirements at different altitudes and in different climatic subregions of the study area. Climate change impacts on ski season length are considerably less when incorporating snowmaking. All 3 modelled ski areas remain snow reliable until the 2040s (A1B) to the 2050s (B1). By then, current snowmaking technology has reached its technological limits. The required snow volume until the end of the century is projected to increase by up to 330%. Although snowmaking is a suitable adaptation strategy for the next decades, it is unlikely to be a sustainable adaptation strategy beyond the middle of the century. Besides altitude, local climate characteristics clearly influence ski season length, requiring the use of localized climate data. A comprehensive study of the research area, modelling all ski areas, is needed to assess the vulnerability of the ski marketplace in Tyrol
Skiing tourism is an important income source in Austria. The future development of skiing tourism is essential for Austria's rural and peripheral areas and their socio-cultural and economic ...wellbeing, and relevant for the entire Austrian economy. Though a number of factors driving tourism development can be found in the scientific literature, studies on the future of skiing tourism are largely restricted to the potential impacts of climate change. In this paper, potential impacts on the ski tourism industry in Austria caused by climate change and demographic changes were compared. Demographic changes were found to have a higher impact on skiing tourism than climate change in the first half of the twenty-first century, while climate change could be the more dominant driving force towards the end of the century. Demographic changes include population declines in source countries, and a trend to ageing populations. Other complicating factors include possible developments in snowmaking technology and also rising energy/transport costs resulting from climate change mitigation measures. Thus, the tourism industry is required to diversify its product portfolio and foster snow-linked and snow-independent tourism activities that are attractive for older age groups.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of ski businesses and of the accommodation sector in Tyrol to warm winter seasons and to draw conclusions for climate change ...vulnerability.Design methodology approach - Operational indicators of ski areas and overnight stays in the destinations were analysed in the record warm winter season 2006 2007. Comparing the climatic anomalies of that season with climate change scenarios, the season can serve as an analogue year for average future winter seasons. By interpreting changes in the analogue year, the potential vulnerability of the winter tourism industry in the study area can be assessed.Findings - While the impact on ski areas was relatively small on the province level, the analysis on the basis of individual businesses showed a high sensitivity of small to medium and low-altitude ski areas as well as of ski areas with insufficient snowmaking facilities. Significant differences in the impact on the accommodation sector were found on the district level, with longer-lasting negative effects on the regional tourism economy in two districts with low-altitude ski areas. Climate change increases the risk of financial losses for individual ski businesses as well as for tourism-dependent regional economies, as happened in the 2006 2007 season. As the season represents an extreme event, the long-term effect of a rising frequency of warm winters on demand cannot be assessed.Originality value - The paper presents a valuable and inexpensive approach to assess the impact of warm winter seasons on the supply side as well as on the demand side.
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