Using ski industry response to climatic variability to assess climate change risk: An analogue study in Eastern Canada

Rutty, Michelle; Scott, Daniel; Johnson, Peter A.; Pons, Marc; Steiger, Robert; Vilella, Marc

doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2016.10.020

Cited by 94 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The higher debt ratio of small operators is likely related to that fact that smaller ski resorts are more vulnerable to extraordinarily mild winter seasons [29]. For ski areas in Ontario, Rutty et al [70] finds that small resorts experience the greatest loss in season length during an extremely warm winter season. In addition, there is little difference in the debt ratio between medium-sized and large ski areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploration of the Debt Ratio of Ski Lift Operators

Falk

Steiger

2018

Sustainability

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This article examines the determinants of the debt-to-capital ratio of ski lift operators. The analysis is based on the total population of 248 ski lift operators in Austria. The median debt-to-capital ratio is 73%, with a highly skewed distribution, where almost every fourth operator exhibits negative equity capital. Robust regressions show that the debt-to-capital ratio significantly depends on the size of the ski area, elevation, location, presence of a neighboring ski area, supply of accommodation nearby, and the proportion of foreign overnight stays. However, the significance and magnitude of these factors differ between East and West Austria. For eastern Austria, larger ski operators, with neighboring resorts close by and a vast supply of accommodation, have a significantly lower debt-to-capital ratio. In western Austria, elevation and presence of a neighbor are significant predictors. Operators with a neighbor nearby exhibit a 15-percentage-point lower debt ratio.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploration of the Debt Ratio of Ski Lift Operators

Falk

Steiger

2018

Sustainability

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“…Perceived vulnerability assesses the likelihood that climate will cause negative impact on ski tourism; perceived severity assesses the severity of the consequence. Six items that reflect the negative impact of climate change on ski tourism are identified from relevant literature, they are decrease in natural snow, decrease in snow condition, decrease in the number of suitable slopes, decrease in ski season, unstable snow season, and decrease ski experience (Rutty et al, ; Steiger & Stötter, ). To assess perceived vulnerability, the respondents are asked to evaluate the likelihood that ski tourism will meet the above‐mentioned challenges under climate change, for example, “climate change will decrease natural snow in ski resorts”.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among all the tourism sectors, ski tourism is regarded as the most vulnerable. Challenges like rising temperature, reduced snow fall, shortened, and unstable ski season will threaten the industry's operation and also tourist's experiences (Rutty et al, ). Second, climate change's threat on tourism, especially ski tourism has been widely discussed in tourism studies (Steiger et al, ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is particularly true for ski tourism, where tourist's experience is highly sensitive to climate. Increased temperature and reduced snowfall will threaten the industry's operation and ski tourist's leisure experience (Rutty et al, ; Steiger, Scott, Abegg, Pons, & Aall, ). Ski tourism relates the distant global issue to tourist's personal experience and thus, is supposed to increase perceived threat and mitigation intention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Will concerns for ski tourism promote pro‐environmental behaviour? An implication of protection motivation theory

Chen

Dai

Zhu

et al. 2019

Journal of Tourism Research

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Encouraging mitigation behaviour at the personal level is vital to address the issue of global climate change. However, despite numerous climate change communication campaigns, a large percentage of people still feel reluctant to engage in mitigation behaviours. In this paper, we reconsidered the gap between people's objective knowledge on climate change and their mitigation intention in tourism context. By applying protection motivation theory (PMT) and construal level theory (CLT), we accessed the mediating role of threat appraisal and coping appraisal in the context of ski tourism.The results indicate that generally, appraisal of climate change's threat on ski tourism mediates the relationship between knowledge and behavioural intention. Besides, the role of coping appraisal is also partially supported. By contextualizing this study in tourism context and also by separating generally response efficacy from that in terms of ski tourism, we verified the effect of proximising climate change on encouraging mitigation behaviour. This study contributes to existing literature by (i) empirically examining knowledge as an antecedent of PMT and also (ii) incorporating CLT to PMT in a tourism context. The findings have important implications for encouraging personal mitigation behaviours.

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“…The decrease in the extent and duration of snow caused by high temperature and changed precipitation will be an immense challenge for the alpine ski industry globally [24][25][26]. The developed areas, such as Alpine countries, North America, Japan and South Korea, have substantial research on the reliability and sustainability of ski resorts and ski conditions, particularly in the context of global warming [6,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. The results showed that the shortened ski season length, the decreased snow abundance and snowpack duration with skiability, the reduced snow quality and the increased water usage for snow-making have been the top challenges for the ski industry, particularly in low latitude, low altitude and small-sized resorts.As a country rich in mountains, China has great potential for developing ski tourism.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Spatial Pattern of Ski Areas and Its Driving Factors in China: A Strategy for Healthy Development of the Ski Industry

Xiao

Ding

2019

Sustainability

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The development of ski areas would bring socio-economic benefits to mountain regions. At present, the ski industry in China is developing rapidly, and the number of ski areas is increasing dramatically. However, the understanding of the spatial pattern and driving factors for these ski areas is limited. This study collected detailed data about ski areas and their surrounding natural and economic factors in China. Criteria for classification of ski areas were proposed, and a total of 589 alpine ski areas in China were classified into three types: ski resorts for vacationing (va-ski resorts), ski areas for learning (le-ski areas) and ski parks to experience skiing (ex-ski parks), with proportions of 2.1%, 15.4% and 82.5%, respectively, which indicated that the Chinese ski industry was still dominated by small-sized ski areas. The overall spatial patterns of ski areas were clustered with a nearest neighbor indicator (NNI) of 0.424, in which ex-ski parks and le-ski areas exhibited clustered distributions with NNIs of 0.44 and 0.51, respectively, and va-ski resorts were randomly distributed with an NNI of 1.04. The theory and method of spatial autocorrelation were first used to analyze the spatial pattern and driving factors of ski areas. The results showed that ski areas in cities had a positive spatial autocorrelation with a Moran’s index value of 0.25. The results of Local Indications of Spatial Association (LISA) showed that ski areas were mainly concentrated in 3 regions: the Beijing-centered Yanshan-Taihang Mountains and Shandong Hill areas, the Harbin-centered Changbai Mountain areas and the Urumqi-centered Tianshan-Altay Mountain areas. The first location was mainly driven by socio-economic factors, and the latter two locations were mainly driven by natural factors. Ski tourism in China still faces many challenges. The government sector should strengthen supervision, develop a ski industry alliance, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the ski industry in the future.

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Using ski industry response to climatic variability to assess climate change risk: An analogue study in Eastern Canada

Cited by 94 publications

References 47 publications

An Exploration of the Debt Ratio of Ski Lift Operators

An Exploration of the Debt Ratio of Ski Lift Operators

Will concerns for ski tourism promote pro‐environmental behaviour? An implication of protection motivation theory

The Spatial Pattern of Ski Areas and Its Driving Factors in China: A Strategy for Healthy Development of the Ski Industry

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