The future of winter sports tourism in the Alpine region of Austria

• Autor(a) principal: Müller, Lea Theresa
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/29719
• topic: Winter sports; Climate change; Global warming; Scenarios; Scenarios winter sports; Temperature increase; Snow-reliability; Skiing; Desportos de inverno; Mudanças climáticas; Aquecimento global; Cenários; Cenários de desportos de inverno; Aumento de temperatura; Confiabilidade da neve; Esquí; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Global warming is one of the greatest threats to winter sports tourism in the Alpine region. The influences of rising temperatures caused by climate change pose severe impediments for winter sports tourism. This rise in temperature results in an increase in the snowfall line and thus a decrease in the natural snow-reliability. The present thesis focuses on the effects which disrup-tive global warming is currently causing on the winter sports industry in the Austrian Alps and draws an outlook for the industry. To this end, the effects of different temperature increases on the industry were analysed and, with the help of expert interviews, current trends in the industry were identified. Based on the analyses and expert interviews, three scenarios were derived and future perspectives presented. A positive scenario shows how the industry, through pioneering and innovative spirit, succeeds in creating a sustainable solution for the survival of winter sports. In a neutral scenario, the market participants manage to sustain the demand for winter sports tourism with a considerable amount of expenditure. The negative scenario signifies that a contraction process will take place in the industry, which will lead to a reduction in supply on the one hand and to reduced profits on the other. The number of participants forced out of the market will increase, and thus winter sports tourism ceases to exist in the long term. These future scenarios are intended to provide comprehensive support to winter sports tourism man-agers in their initial steps towards a more sustainable industry.