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Tourist regions with long tradition and years of experience often have a hard time implementing strategic management concepts. This is due to decision‐making and management processes at the level of tourism policy and the different levels of the tourism organization. These levels were bogged down for many years and aggravated the task of carrying out the required modifications. With the example of the Alpine region South Tyrol, this paper explains the errors that are likely to happen in the formulation and implementation of strategic concepts. The idea was to use a concrete example to explain the interdependence of the individual elements of strategic management from vision to implementation while, at the same time, elucidating the barriers and the sources of resistance to change at tourism organizations.

Post‐war tourism in the Swiss Alps developed in four distinct phases. The pioneering phase (1955 – 65) was led by small family businesses of an old‐fashioned patriarchal stamp: guided by ideals, ready to take risks, possessed of few qualifications. The next phase (1965 – 79) was a period of quantitative growth which saw tourism become an important sector of the national economy, and also prepared the way for mass tourism and the accompanying infrastructure and superstructure that appeared in the new alpine destinations. The so‐called consolidation phase (1980 – 89) brought the first ever downturn in the tourism growth curves.

The competitiveness of the Alpine regions is strongly influenced by environmental constraints and its relationship with the urban network in the valley floor, which cannot be one of pure dependence. This study aims to analyse the health of the Italian Alpine economy through the performance of its capital companies, defined as those operating in the strictly mountainous are-as within the territories covered by the Alpine Convention. The authors compare the performance (2012-2018) of the “inner core” firms with a counterfactual sample of companies from neighbouring territories to delineate the strengths and weaknesses of the Alpine enterprises. The paper addresses policymakers and practitioners who will design the future policies for the high lands, exploiting a vast collaborative planning network.

The study analyses two broad strands of literature on territorial competitiveness. It uses the coarsened exact matching techniques for the selection of a counterfactual sample at the enterprise level. The study follows a policy-oriented design, offering answers to future challenges.

The Alpine region has several different local production systems, with a significant level of heterogeneity among firms that differentiate the top 25% from the rest. The counterfactual analysis carried out does not provide clear evidence of significant differences. Instead, it con-firms strong similarities between the Alpine core and the peri-Alpine belt. It is only in terms of employment growth that the core grows less (with a high statistical significance). Finally, the authors introduce the analysis of sustainable value added (SVA) in the core area and use the “tourism chain” to compare different models. The focus here is on two keywords – rarefied and uncontaminated – that enable the transformation of some typical weaknesses of the “minor (or marginal) mountain” into assets for development, provided that place-based and network policies are activated.

The study focusses on the Italian Alps and could be extended in the future to the other countries participating in the Alpine Convention. It may also be enriched by qualitative analyses of partnerships and sole proprietorships that are not identified by the balance sheet analysis.

The study follows a policy-oriented design, offering possible solutions to future challenges.

The study offers some suggestions on the post-COVID-19 phase. The bottom-up, reluctant and community dimension are possible strengths to face the challenges that are opening up.

The study is one of the very few to carry out a counterfactual analysis of Alpine enterprises. It offers evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of the productive fabric of the high lands and updates the assessment of the health status of Alpine enterprises to accompany future fact-based policies after the COVID pandemic.

The paper is concerned with the tourism industry's increased demand for better educated and/or trained manpower and the general requirements of higher levels of know‐how on account of secular changes in the demand for higher quality tourism products, technological changes and a more competitive global environment. After discussing the general patterns of skill and know‐how acquisition in tourism in the context of today's labour markets and tourism schooling/training systems the paper speculates on possible causes for know‐how deficits assumed to be particularly prevalent in alpine tourism (section II and III). Following this section IV reports on qualification and know‐how deficits on the basis of a self‐assessment survey carried out among 144 tourism enterprises comprising the typical tourism value chain of alpine tourism. Conclusions are drawn up in V.

By examining a case study in Tyrol, Austria, the paper aims to demonstrate the role of farm diversification and the influence of the peasants’ habitus on social-ecological resilience.

Drawing on a field study conducted in two remote villages of the Ötztal valley, Austrian Alps, this study provides insights into the interplay of tourism and farming and its impact on farm resilience. Qualitative narrative interviews, the so-called farm biographies, served to investigate these issues. Interpretations of data are based on qualitative content analysis.

The results highlight that farming and tourism are highly enmeshed in the case study area and that the additional income creates room for manoeuvre for the farms to activate their adaptive capability. At the same time, peasant values guide the farming activities. The farms in this study demonstrate a strong farm resilience that is enabled by farm diversification and rooted in their peasant habitus. This positively affects the social-ecological resilience.

In contrast to other studies, which have mainly applied the concepts of social or community resilience to investigate the resilience and vulnerability of rural areas, this study highlights the resilience of farms in mountain areas.

Slovenia is one of the new born states in Central Europe, one of the six republics of the former Yugoslavia. It proclaimed its independence on 26 June 1991, was recognised by the European Community on 15 January 1992 and was adopted as a full member of the United Nations on 22 May 1992.

The restrictive measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to everything across the world. The global crisis hit every sphere of life. The mobility restrictive nature of the pandemic was a major blow to the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. For a country like Pakistan, with an unstable economy and struggling tourism, the pandemic served as ground zero. This chapter critically examines tourism dimensions in Pakistan and how it sustained the impact of various crises. It pays attention to the concepts of vulnerability, social and community resilience, and adaptive capacity to provide a theoretical understanding of the revival of tourism in Pakistan. It also considers the impact of COVID-led measures on the tourism industry and corresponding initiatives of the government. The chapter concludes by arguing that Pakistan should carefully monitor and assess the current debates on tourism policies and practices. The chapter suggests that the national tourism strategy should incorporate a mechanism that can address tourism in crises in addition to addressing the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impact of tourism.