Analysis of Destination Images in the Emerging Ski Market: The Case Study in the Host City of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games

This study aims to propose a text mining framework suitable for destination image (DI) research based on UGC (User Generated Content), which combines the LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) model and sentiment analysis method based on custom rules and lexicon to identify and analyze the DI in the emerging ski market. The ski resorts in the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games are selected as a case study. The findings reveal that (1) 9 image attributes, out of which two image attributes have not been identified before in winter destination studies, namely beginner suitability and ticketing service. (2) In the past seven snow seasons, the negative sentiment of tourists has shown a continuous downward trend. The positive sentiment has exhibited a slow upward trend. (3) For tourists from destination countries affected by the Winter Olympic Games, the destination image will be improved when the destination meets their expectations. When the destination cannot meet their expectations, the tourists still believe that the holding of the Winter Olympic will enhance the destination’s situation. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Comparison and Analysis of Injuries At Ski Resorts in Chongli, China and Japan

Background: More researches should be needed on injuries at ski resorts in Chongli, one of the sites of the 2022 Winter Olympics.Hypothesis: In Chinese ski resorts, injury accidents should be more frequent, and the injured body parts may be related to the protective clothingMethods: In this retrospective study, injuries at ski resorts in Chongli, China and Japan were analyzed to provide a reference for the ongoing injury prevention work at ski resorts. We collected data [see Additional file 1] on injuries at Wanlong and Fulong Ski Resort in Chongli during the 2017–2018 and 2018–2019 ski seasons. We referred to the ski injury report issued in February 2020 by the Japan Ski Safety Association [see Additional file 2]. The causes of and specific body parts involved in the injuries at both the Chinese and Japanese ski resorts were analyzed.Results: During the 2019–2020 ski season at the Japanese ski resorts, 0.93 injuries occurred per 10,000 skiers, and older skiers constituted a larger proportion of those injured, with 227 (8.6%) aged over 60 years. The knee joint was the most commonly injured body part among both Chinese and Japanese skiers, whereas shoulder joint injury was the most prevalent among snowboarders. Conclusion: The two Chongli ski resorts had a higher injury rate than the Japanese ski resorts. Medical treatment should focus more on older skiers, and helmet use requires urgent promotion

Skiing during the pandemic with masks and tests

Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Austrian ski resorts needed to create an emotional attachment to absent tourists and provide attractive offers for local guests at the same time. This study aims to reveal how they have used Instagram to connect with their heterogeneous audiences. To do so, the authors combined a quantitative hashtag analysis and qualitative content analysis of 16 Instagram accounts. Findings indicate a tendency of the ski resorts to communicate positively connotated winter holiday content and present themselves as attractive skiing areas. Here, the topics of the winter landscape, weather, infrastructure, and holiday activities represent dominant themes whereas COVID-19 was covered rarely. In comparison to the previous winter season, only slight differences were identified. This study provides new findings to the rare amount of research on crisis management in ski resorts and contributes further insights into COVID-19 research in tourism. The implications will help ski resorts to prepare for communication in upcoming seasons and future crisis management.

Past changes in natural and managed snow reliability of French Alps ski resorts from 1961 to 2018

Snow reliability is a key climatic impact driver for the ski tourism industry, for which there is more literature regarding future projections than past observed impacts. This study provides an assessment of past changes in natural and managed snow cover reliability from 1961 to 2018 in the French Alps. In particular, we used snowmaking investment figures to infer the evolution of snowmaking coverage at the ski resort scale for 16 ski resorts in the French Alps. We find different benefits of snow management to reduce the variability and long term decrease in snow cover reliability because of the heterogeneity of the snowmaking deployment trajectories across ski resorts. The frequency of challenging conditions for ski resort operation over the 1991–2018 period increased in November and February to April compared to the reference period 1961–1990. In general, snowmaking had a positive impact on snow reliability, especially in December to January. While for the highest elevation ski resorts, snowmaking improved snow reliability for the core of the winter season, it did not counterbalance the decreasing trend in snow cover reliability for lower elevation ski resorts and in the spring.

Evaluating a prediction system for snow management

The evaluation of snowpack models capable of accounting for snow management in ski resorts is a major step towards acceptance of such models in supporting the daily decision-making process of snow production managers. In the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 (H2020) project PROSNOW, a service to enable real-time optimization of grooming and snow-making in ski resorts was developed. We applied snow management strategies integrated in the snowpack simulations of AMUNDSEN, Crocus, and SNOWPACK–Alpine3D for nine PROSNOW ski resorts located in the European Alps. We assessed the performance of the snow simulations for five winter seasons (2015–2020) using both ground-based data (GNSS-measured snow depth) and spaceborne snow maps (Copernicus Sentinel-2). Particular attention has been devoted to characterizing the spatial performance of the simulated piste snow management at a resolution of 10 m. The simulated results showed a high overall accuracy of more than 80 % for snow-covered areas compared to the Sentinel-2 data. Moreover, the correlation to the ground observation data was high. Potential sources for local differences in the snow depth between the simulations and the measurements are mainly the impact of snow redistribution by skiers; compensation of uneven terrain when grooming; or spontaneous local adaptions of the snow management, which were not reflected in the simulations. Subdividing each individual ski resort into differently sized ski resort reference units (SRUs) based on topography showed a slight decrease in mean deviation. Although this work shows plausible and robust results on the ski slope scale by all three snowpack models, the accuracy of the results is mainly dependent on the detailed representation of the real-world snow management practices in the models. As snow management assessment and prediction systems get integrated into the workflow of resort managers, the formulation of snow management can be refined in the future.

Managing risk in ski resorts: Environmental factors affecting actual and estimated speed on signposted groomed slopes in a cohort of adult recreational alpine skiers

Background Certain weather conditions are clearly harmful, increasing the risk of injury of winter sports participants substantially. The objective of this study was to investigate actual speeds of skiers on signposted groomed slopes and to measure their skill to accurately estimate them with regard to environmental conditions such as visibility, sky cover, snow quality, wind and temperature. Methods The data were obtained from a sample of 421 adult recreational skiers taking ski courses. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to explore the relationship between actual and estimated speed for all participants. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to measure the effect of environmental conditions on both the skiers’ actual speeds and their errors of estimation. Values of 0.05 or less were considered to indicate statistical significance. Results The Pearson correlation coefficient between estimated and actual speed was 0.90 (P < 0.001). Skiers underestimated their actual speed on average by 13.06 km/h or 24.1%. Visibility, quality of snow and wind speed were shown to significantly affect both actual maximum speed and estimated speed. Good visibility, grippy snow and calm wind were associated with both the highest actual maximum speed and the lowest ability to estimate it. Conclusion Certain environmental conditions are associated with the actual speed at which skiers travel and with their ability to estimate it. Visibility, quality of snow and wind speed seem to influence both actual speed and the ability to estimate it while sky cover and temperature do not. A reinforced understanding of skiing speed on signposted groomed slopes is useful to gain insight into crashes and the mechanisms of resulting injuries, to evaluate means of protection and to devise successful prevention policies in ski resorts.