Site‐specific encounters, norms and crowding of summer visitors at alpine ski areas

Abstract

Operating chairlifts at alpine ski areas during the summer to accommodate tourism and recreation activities (e.g. hiking and mountain biking) is increasing in popularity. Increasing summer use, however, may affect the ability of ski areas to sustain acceptable social conditions (e.g. crowding). In addition, little is known about encounters, crowding or acceptable use levels at ski areas during the summer. This article addresses these issues using data from surveys of summer visitors (n = Keywords: crowding; encounters; indicators; norms; ski areas; standards of quality.548 INTRODUCTIONT ourism and recreation at mountain resorts such as Vail (USA), Chamonix (France), and Whistler (Canada) have received considerable attention in the literature (Gill and Hartmann, 1992;Klenosky et al., 1993;Gill and Williams, 1994;Hudson and Shephard, 1998;Gill, 2000;Godde et al., 2000). Alpine ski areas (e.g. Aspen Highlands, USA; Blackcomb and Whistler Mountains, Canada) are focal points of tourism and recreation at mountain resorts, and activities such as skiing and snowboarding have dominated ski areas for decades. Studies have examined the social dimensions (e.g. visitor conflict) of this winter use Ormiston et al., 1998;Vaske et al., 2000;Thapa and Graefe, 2003 Other researchers have examined some biophysical impacts (e.g. trail erosion, vegetation trampling) associated with summer use at ski areas (Price, 1983;Wood, 1987;. Saremba and Gill (1991) and Pickering and Buckley (2003) discussed activities and social impacts (e.g. crowding) related to summer use at ski areas, but their discussions were not based on empirical data. Hence, the social aspects of tourism and recreation at ski areas in the summer season have received little empirical attention. Operating chairlifts at alpine ski areas in the summer to accommodate activities such as hiking and mountain biking is increasing in popularity. For example, 12% of the ski areas in British Columbia (BC), Canada had lifts operating in the summer of 1991. A decade later, summer operations occurred at 65% of these areas (BCALC, 2000). Many alpine ski areas worldwide now have at least one chairlift operating in the summer, with some ski areas receiving over 250 000 visitors each summer (Needham et al., 2004).Increasing use, however, has generated concerns about the ability of ski areas to sustain acceptable levels of social impacts (e.g. visitor crowding) during the summer season (Saremba and Gill, 1991;Pickering and Buckley, 2003;. Research suggests that to manage use in tourism and recreation settings, it is necessary to understand the: (i) number of other people that guests encounter during their visit; (ii) degree to which guests feel crowded during their visit; and (iii) conditions (e.g. use levels) that guests feel are acceptable and unacceptable Manning, 1999;Vaske and Donnelly, 2002). Little is known, however, about crowding, encounters, or the acceptability of use levels at ski areas during the summer season. This article addresses this knowledge gap using data from ...

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