Climate Change and Ski Tourism Sustainability: An Integrated Model of the Adaptive Dynamics between Ski Area Operations and Skier Demand

Climate change is an evolving business reality influencing the sustainability of ski tourism worldwide. A new integrated model of the co-evolution of supply (27 ski areas) and demand-side (skier behaviour) climate change adaptation in the ski tourism market of Ontario, Canada is presented. Ski area operations are modeled under a high-emission 2050s scenario, with skier responses to altered operations informed by a survey of 2429 skiers. These market adaptive dynamics reveal new insights into differential climate risk, capturing patterns not apparent when considering only operational conditions of ski resorts. A decoupling of ski season length and skier visitation was found at four ski areas, where, despite average season length losses, visitation increased as a result of reduced competition. Simulated skier visit losses were smaller than reductions in season length, contributing to an increase in crowding. Growing the market of skiers was also identified as a critical adaptation strategy that could offset skier visit losses from shortened seasons. Climate change challenges the future sustainability of ski areas in this market in several ways: profitability of ski areas with substantially shorter seasons, increased snowmaking costs, crowding impacts on visitor experience, and potential overtourism at the few most climate resilient destinations.

Terrain park feature compliance with Québec ski area safety recommendations

ObjectivesThe primary objective of this paper is to examine terrain park (TP) feature compliance with recommendations from a ski area industry guide (are TP features compliant with the guide?) and determine factors that could be associated with TP feature compliance in Québec ski areas (do factors influence TP feature compliance?), Canada. These recommendations on the design, construction and maintenance are provided by the Québec Ski Areas Association Guide.MethodsA group of two to four trained research assistants visited seven ski areas. They used an evaluation tool to assess the compliance of 59 TP features. The evaluation tool, originally developed to assess the quality of TP features based on the guide, was validated in a previous study. Compliance was calculated by the percentage of compliant measures within a given feature. The potential influence of four factors on compliance (size of the TP, size of the feature, snow conditions and type of feature) were examined using a mixed-effects logistic regression model.ResultsThe average TP feature compliance percentage was 93% (95% CI 88% to 99%) for boxes, 91% (95% CI 89% to 94%) for rails and 89% (95% CI 86% to 92%) for jumps. The logistic regression showed that none of the four factors examined were associated with TP feature compliance with the guide.ConclusionOur results suggest that TP features are highly compliant with the guide in Québec ski areas.

Fuzzy Techniques for Artificial Snow Cover Optimization in the Ski Areas. Case Study: Obârșia Lotrului (Southern Carpathians, Romania)

This paper focuses on the environmental conflicts induced by insufficient continuous snow cover on the ski areas in Romania. The case study aims envisions the area of Southern Carpathians, Latoriței Mountains, belonging to the group of Parâng Mountains. The area chosen to develop and improve the artificial snow system was conducted for in the proposed ski area, Obârşia Lotrului. This fulfilled a necessary condition (geomorphological and climatic) for the development of the ski domain. The methodology focuses on two main stages phases. In the first stage phase, based on the GIS, the areas that have shown problems in terms of continuity of the snow layer and its thickness were identified, while the second phase, there is a supposed optimization based on Fuzzy logic for the installation of artificial snow. The corresponding thickness of snow for a longer period of time can lead to a higher socio-economic efficiency, as well as the increase of the use duration of the respective ski area, and also a prevention mechanism to environmental conflicts that may arise. The proposed study supports civil society by optimizing artificial snow machines through a positive impact on water resources allocated to a ski area in order to maintain a continuous snow cover.

Suitability analysis of ski areas in China: an integrated study based on natural and socioeconomic conditions

The successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics (Beijing 2022, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games) has greatly stimulated Chinese enthusiasm towards winter sports participation. Consequently, the Chinese ski industry is rapidly booming due to enormous market demand and government support. However, investing in ski areas in unreasonable locations will cause problems from an economic perspective (in terms of operation and management) as well as geographical concerns (such as environmental degradation). Therefore, evaluating the suitability of a ski area based on scientific metrics has become a prerequisite for the sustainable development of the ski industry. In this study, we evaluate the locational suitability of ski areas in China by integrating their natural and socioeconomic conditions using a linearly weighted method based on geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis combined with remote sensing, online, and field survey data. The key indexes for evaluating natural suitability include snow cover, air temperature, topographic conditions, water resources, and vegetation, whereas socioeconomic suitability is evaluated based on economic conditions, accessibility of transportation, distance to a tourist attraction, and distance to a city. As such, metrics ranging from 0 to 1 considering both natural and socioeconomic conditions are used to define a suitability threshold for each candidate region for ski area development. A ski area is considered to be a dismal prospect when the locational integrated index is less than 0.5. The results show that 84 % of existing ski areas are located in areas with an integrated index greater than 0.5. Finally, corresponding development strategies for decision-makers are proposed based on the multicriteria metrics, which will be extended to incorporate potential influences from future climate change and socioeconomic development. However, the snowmaking model with local data should to be used to further analyze the suitability for a specific ski area.

Suitability Analysis of Ski Areas in China: An Integrated Study Based on Natural and Socioeconomic Conditions

The successful bidding of the 2022 Winter Olympics (Beijing 2022, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games) has greatly stimulated Chinese enthusiasm to participate in winter sports. Consequently, the Chinese ski industry is rapidly booming driven by enormous market demand and government support. However, investing in ski area at an unreasonable location will cause problems both from economic perspective (in terms of operation and management) as well as geographical concerns (such as environmental degradation). To evaluate the suitability of a ski area based on scientific metrics has since become a prerequisite to the sustainable development of ski industry. In this study, we evaluate the locational suitability of ski areas in China by integrating their natural and socioeconomic conditions using linear weighted method based on geographic information systems (GIS) spatial analysis combined with remote sensing, online and field survey data. Key indexes for evaluating the natural suitability include snow cover, air temperature, topographic conditions, groundwater, and vegetation, whereas socioeconomic suitability is evaluated based on economic conditions, accessibility of transportation, distance to tourist attractions, and distance to cities. As such, an integrated metrics considering both natural and socioeconomic suitability is defined to be a threshold and used to identify the suitability of a candidate region for ski area development. The results show that 92 % of existing ski areas are located in areas with an integrated index greater than 0.5. In contrary, a ski area is considered to be a dismal prospect when the locational integrated index is less than 0.5. Finally, corresponding development strategies for decision-makers are proposed based on the multi-criteria metrics, which will be extended to incorporate potential influences from future climate change and socioeconomic development.