The mutual interaction of climate change and the highly weatherdependent 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 Norwayan 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.

Indicators are widely used in climate variability and climate change assessments to simplify the tracking of complex processes and phenomena in the state of the environment. Apart from the climatic criteria, the snow indicators in ski tourism have been increasingly extended with elements that relate to the technical, operational, and commercial aspects of ski tourism. These non-natural influencing factors have gained in importance in comparison with the natural environmental conditions but are more difficult to comprehend in time and space, resulting in limited explanatory power of the related indicators when applied for larger/longer scale assessments. We review the existing indicator approaches to derive quantitative measures for the snow conditions in ski areas, to formulate the criteria that the indicators should fulfill, and to provide a list of indicators with their technical specifications which can be used in snow condition assessments for ski tourism. For the use of these indicators, a three-step procedure consisting of definition, application, and interpretation is suggested. We also provide recommendations for the design of indicator-based assessments of climate change effects on ski tourism. Thereby, we highlight the importance of extensive stakeholder involvement to allow for real-world relevance of the achieved results.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to present the relationship between climate and tourism development data as an example of an emerging winter and ski tourism destination in Slovakia. Design/methodology/approach – The method aims to discover the relationship through snow-reliability and regression analyses and to further implicate the consequences of such established relationship under a changing (warming) climate. Findings – As a result of the research, the authors can predict that a 1 per cent fall in snow depth and visibility would erode the ski demand by 1.2 and 0.12 per cent, respectively, a 1°C rise of the mean temperature, on the other hand, would indicate a 6 per cent loss of skipass sales. The latter finding translates into a further 6.6 to 19.2 per cent loss of sales on account of the anticipated temperature increases for the twenty-first century. The capacity of the resort for the utmost adaptation strategy, snowmaking, is also to deteriorate with the daytime/fulltime annual good quality production range to reduce from 33/45 days to 10-26/14-34 days, according to the emissions-related warming scenarios and in terms of the commonly available current technology. Practical implications – The results of the study can help the management of ski resorts to adopt strategies for the future development by taking into account the predicted climatic changes. Originality/value – This study is the first type of study performed in Slovakia and can contribute to the better understanding of the relationship between climate change and the performance of the ski tourism resorts. It also delivers innovation by considering wet-bulb temperature in snow-reliability analyses and also by coining the “climate elasticity” concept.

The effects of climate conditions and weather on ski tourism have become a hot topic as the negative impacts of climate change on ski tourism become increasingly visible. This study aims at measuring the significance and magnitude of long-term diurnal and daily weather conditions on lift frequentation at an Austrian glacier ski area in terms of the winter and the summer skiing offers. In doing so, it utilizes an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) model to reveal and quantify any volatility associated with ski area visitation and then employs regression models to account for any microclimatic elasticity of glacier skiing demand. The main findings reveal a significant volatility in ski area visitation, especially during the summer seasons. While this study does not aim for an ultimate determination on the reasons for such volatility, skiing demand models illustrate the importance of thermal comfort, especially wind chill factor (WCF), as a major determinant of demand sensitivity for glacier skiing as well as non-skier visits during the summer season. Significant, albeit inelastic, relationships between other microclimatic characteristics, such as snow depth and relative humidity, with visitation and lift frequentation are also identified. Based on these findings, implications according to a changing climate and practical suggestions on the sustainability of winter and summer skiing activities are provided.

Highlights Provision of pan-European climate change impact indicators for ski tourism. The indicators account for natural snow cover processes, grooming and snowmaking. The indicators are provided for NUTS-3 areas by elevation steps of 100 m. The indicators combine reanalysis and regional climate model projections (1950–2100). The indicators are available freely through the Copernicus C3S Climate Data Store.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to discuss the external and internal factors that support or challenge a possible transformation of Arctic Sweden into a major ski destination under a changing climate. Design/methodology/approach -The paper questions future availability of the physical and the human factors that foster ski tourism development in Arctic Sweden and suggests a comparative case study in relation to the already existing large resort-based ski destinations in Arctic Finland.Findings -Preliminary documentary analysis shows that the governmental and the industrial discourses over the past decade have acknowledged a competitive edge for Sweden and its northernmost regions in particular and may even propose a structural shift for ski tourism in the near future agenda. The visualisations based on natural snow projections presented in this paper confirm this comparative advantage but other technical and socioeconomic development factors are further discussed, in relation to Arctic Finland. Research limitations/implications -Future research agenda is suggested to cover, first, assessment of natural and technical snow reliability of existing and all potential ski areas in Sweden and within its competitive set extending to all the Nordics and the Alps, then, incorporation of adaptive capacities of the suppliers but especially the likely substitution tendencies of the consumers, and finally, evaluation of the overall situation in terms of the regional development needs. Social implications -It is apparent that land use conflicts will arise in case of large ski resort-based destination development in Arctic Sweden, especially around the environmentally protected areas, which are not only already important attractions for nature-based tourism but also traditional livelihoods for the Sami. Originality/value -This is the first paper to discuss a potential regional and structural shift of ski tourism in Sweden.

Many ski resorts worldwide are going through deteriorating snow cover conditions due to anthropogenic warming trends. As the natural and the artificially supported, i.e., technical, snow reliability of ski resorts diminish, the industry approaches a deadlock. For this reason, impact assessment studies have become vital for understanding vulnerability of ski tourism. This study considers three resorts at one of the rapidly emerging ski destinations, Northeast Turkey, for snow reliability analyses. Initially one global circulation model is dynamically downscaled by using the regional climate model RegCM4.4 for 1971-2000 and 2021-2050 periods along the RCP4.5 greenhouse gas concentration pathway. Next, the projected climate outputs are converted into indicators of natural snow reliability, snowmaking capacity, and wind conditions. The results show an overall decline in the frequencies of naturally snow reliable days and snowmaking capacities between the two periods. Despite the decrease, only the lower altitudes of one ski resort would face the risk of losing natural snow reliability and snowmaking could still compensate for forming the base layer before the critical New Year's week. On the other hand, adverse high wind conditions improve as to reduce the number of lift closure days at all resorts. Overall, this particular region seems to be relatively resilient against climate change.

Tourism is a major socioeconomic contributor to established and emerging destinations in the Mediterranean region. Recent studies introducing the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) highlight the significance of climate as a factor in sustaining the competitiveness of coastal and urban destinations. The aim of this study is to assess the future HCI performance of urban and beach destinations in the greater Mediterranean region. For this purpose, HCI scores for the reference (1971–2000) and future (2021–2050, 2070–2099) periods were computed with the use of two latest greenhouse gas concentration trajectories, RCP 4.5 and 8.5, based on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) domain and data. The outputs were adjusted to a 500 m resolution via the use of lapse rate corrections that extrapolate the climate model topography against a resampled digital elevation model. All periodic results were seasonally aggregated and visualized on a (web) geographical information system (GIS). The web version of the GIS also allowed for a basic climate service where any user can search her/his place of interest overlaid with index ratings. Exposure levels are revealed at the macro scale while sensitivity is discussed through a validation of the climatic outputs against visitation data for one of Mediterranean’s leading destinations, Antalya.