Abstract
ABSTRACTThe mutual interaction of climate change and the highly weather-dependent ski tourism business is drawing increasing attention from the academic, commercial and political arenas. Changes in the cryosphere are becoming major determinants of the sustainability of ski areas. Therefore, there is a great deal of literature entailing impact and adaptation studies regarding ski areas, resorts, and destinations; however, research on the demand side of the issue is relatively limited. In this paper, the relationship between climate change and a niche segment of ski tourism, summer skiing, is discussed with regard to the awareness, perceptions, and mitigation and substitution behaviours of visitors to the summer downhill ski centres in Norway – an underresearched country, despite its recognition as the cradle of skiing. For this purpose, a comprehensive survey was administered to a sample of 224 subjects. The results revealed high climate change awareness but limited climate friendliness, and a strong emphasis on the immediate climate impacts on summer skiing that create a tendency towards ski activity substitution within Norway. Individual profiles also played a significant role in the anticipated mitigation and substitution behaviours. The implications of the results involving demand attitude and behaviour are further discussed with regard to the suppliers.
Highlights
Global warming has been occurring at an ever-increasing rate for the past few decades
Seventy-four questions in Norwegian were posed, drawing on the best from the previous works reviewed in the literature for a comprehensive questionnaire under the three themes summer skier profiles and demographics, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation, with a final open comment box
Looking at the summer skiing profiles of the respondents (Table 2), we see that many (66%) practice Alpine skiing as their primary summer snow sports, while the rest prefer to ride snowboards (15%) or the nation’s very own free-heel skis, the Telemark (19%)
Summary
Global warming has been occurring at an ever-increasing rate for the past few decades. This trend is physically evident in warming oceans, rising sea levels, retreating sea ice, melting glaciers, and diminishing snow cover. The essential playgrounds of ski tourism, namely snow cover and glacier surfaces, will continue shrinking in negative correlation with the rising surface temperatures during the twenty-first century (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013). As a matter the ski industry is regarded as the type of tourism that is “the most directly and the most immediately affected” by climate change. Combined with the continuous stagnation on the ski tourism market in recent decades, and the summer skiing market
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