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This paper aims to formulate assumptions on home sharing users’ sensitivity toward sustainability in mountain areas and define the sustainability indicators that may be used to search for home-based accommodation in mountain areas.

The paper is based on a literature review of key terms: mountain tourism, peer-to-peer accommodation and sustainability indicators.

Tourists in mountain areas are more likely to be sensitive toward sustainability than in urban areas, so they are likely to expect home sharing websites to provide sustainability criteria for selecting their accommodation.

Home sharing platforms should offer to mountain tourists the possibility to search for and assess home-based accommodation using sustainability criteria.

Most studies on peer-to-peer accommodation were designed in urban areas. The authors state that in mountain areas, tourists are more sensitive toward sustainability and would therefore be more inclined to consider sustainability in their search for a home-based accommodation.

The particularly ambitious law of 28 December 2016 aims to protect and bolster economic vitality in mountain regions. As such, it puts the emphasis on supporting and promoting tourism activities. This analysis offers an opportunity to highlight certain particularly innovative provisions that have genuine legal and practical impact.

This paper is based on a detailed analysis of the Mountain Act 2 taking into account the point of view of customers and tourism promoters.

The feelings as to how much Mountain Act 2 will benefit the tourism industry remain mixed. The legislators have tried to provide answers to the new problems and issues faced by mountain communities, but at the same time, many measures are leaving tourism development promoters somewhat disappointed.

This paper discusses the implications of the Mountain Act 2 taking into account the point of view of customers and tourism promoters.

This paper aims to offer some key summary points drawn from the collection of articles gathered in this theme issue as to how Alpine destinations can manage tourism sustainability.

The paper summarizes the contribution made by different articles published in this issue and discusses their connection to the strategic issue of tourism sustainability.

The paper presents four key points that contribute to the debate on tourism sustainability: the sharing economy geared for winter mountain destinations; marketing perspectives on sustainability in winter mountain destinations; sustainability and transportation; and the institutional, legal and socio-economic aspects of sustainability.

Drawing on indicators of tourists’ behavior and from the findings of the articles published in this issue, this concluding study identifies the challenges that winter mountain destinations will have to address in the future. The originality and value of this issue lies in the multidisciplinary approach that was adopted – most research on sustainability tends to focus on a single academic stream. Moreover, the focus is on mountain areas with a cross-border perspective, whereas most research on sustainability is designed for a single country, and wider applicability is bounded by constraints.

Using a generic cheese as an anchor product, in this study consumers' preferences for different EU quality schemes have been investigated. Specifically, the study aims to understand whether “Protected Designation of Origin” (PDO), “Organic” and “Mountain Product” labels are independent or if there are some synergies existing between them, questioning – at the same time – whether this alleged exchange of value plays a positive or negative role in terms of consumers' willingness to pay.

A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted on 600 Italian consumers performing a random parameter logit model. The respondents were representative of the Italian population in terms of age, gender and geographical distribution. Consumers' preferences for the presence of “Organic” and “Mountain product” labels were assessed in the DCE, together with the effect of price, for both PDO and generic cheeses.

Consumers are willing to pay a premium in price for “Organic” and “Mountain Product” per se, for cheese with and without the PDO denomination. Considering the interaction effects, results showed that the combined use of “Organic” and “Mountain Product” labels do not decrease consumers' intention to buy. However, when applied on a PDO product, these attributes generate a lower consumers' willingness to pay in comparison with the generic ones, highlighting a possible overlapping between them.

Despite the abundant literature on EU quality schemes in many food categories, this study represents one of the first attempts to measure the interaction effect between different EU quality schemes.

The case was developed from two 2-h interviews with the Chief Operating Officer of A-Basin, Alan Henceroth; there is no CEO of A-Basin. The second interview was recorded on a Zoom call to provide accuracy of quotations and information. A variety of secondary sources were used in terms of better understanding the current state of the ski industry, as well as its history.

Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin) is a historic, moderately sized, ski area with proximity to metropolitan Denver, Colorado. For over 20 years A-Basin partnered with Vail, allowing skiers to use the Vail Epic Pass, for which A-Basin received some revenue from Vail for each skier visit. The Epic Pass allowed pass holders unlimited days of skiing at A-Basin. More and more skiers were buying the Epic Pass, thus increasing the customer traffic to A-Basin. However, the skier experience was compromised due inadequate parking, long lift lines and crowded restaurants. The renewal of the contract with Vail was coming due, and A-Basin had to consider whether to renew the contract with Vail. The case is framed primarily as a strategic marketing case. The authors use Porter’s five forces model to assess the external environment of A-Basin, and the authors use the resource-based view and the VRIO tool to assess A-Basin’s internal strengths. Both frameworks provide useful analysis in terms of deciding whether to continue A-Basin’s arrangement with Vail or end the contract and pursue a different strategy. In 2019, after consultation with the Canadian parent company Dream, A-Basin made the decision to disassociate itself from the Epic Pass and Vail to restore a quality ski experience for A-Basin’s customers. No other partner had ever left its relationship with Vail. An epilogue details some of A-Basin’s actions, as well as the outcomes for the ski area. Generally A-Basin’s decision produced positive results and solidified its competitive position among competitors. Other ski areas have since adopted a similar strategy as A-Basin. A-Basin’s success is reflected in a pending offer from Alterra, Inc., to purchase the ski area.

The A-Basin case can be used in both undergraduate and graduate strategic (or marketing) management courses. It is probably best considered during the middle of an academic term, as the case requires students to apply many of the theoretical concepts of strategy. One of the best books to enable students to use Porter’s five forces is Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Magretta was a colleague of Porter for many years and was an Editor of the Harvard Business Review. For a discussion of the VRIN/VRIO concept, see Chapter 4 of Essentials of Strategic Management by Gamble, Peteraf and Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2019).

This paper aims at assessing the role of authenticity of local food in contributing to tourism as an ecosystem service in a small mountain tourism destination, i.e. Alagna Valsesia (North-West of Italy).

A mix method approach has been adopted. The research has been carried out by using both CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interview) and PAPI (Paper And Pen Interview) methodologies for surveys on the accommodation facilities managers and tourists. In addition, an analysis of electronic word-of-mouth platforms (TripAdvisor and Google) was implemented to understand more in-depth the local foodservice.

Findings show that Alagna Valsesia embodies its authenticity with the tradition of the local culture, characterised by natural heritage and Walser uses. Some tools are identified to improve the attractiveness of the tourist destination.

The main limitation of this study can be found in the study' application to a rather limited and geographically restricted area.

The results provided by this study can help local policy-makers in driving local policies and public funds in implementing ecotourism based practices.

Although the role of local food has been much studied in relation to the tourism sector, to the knowledge of the authors, this contribution represents a first attempt to analyse local food's role in terms of local food's crossover contribution to supporting cultural tourism.

The purpose of this study adopts a news media narrative approach to Yield insights on aspects of the COVID-19 impact.

This study adopts a news media narrative approach as this method can yield insights on aspects of the COVID-19 impact.

In the post-COVID-19 lockdown context, second-home tourism and mountain tourism could play the role of placebo. The dual dimension of second-home tourism and mountain tourism reflect the Janus-faced character of the tourism industry. Beyond the fact that this study has highlighted the placebo role that both forms of tourism are probably going to play, it makes the connection between mountain tourism and second-home tourism; highlights the Janus-faced character of both forms of tourism; and highlights the mutation impacts of COVID-19 on tourism trends.

COVID-19 is the current concern, and this paper offers a timely perspective on a topic of significant interest.

According to a report by Food and Agriculture Organization, total forest area in the world as of 2005 is estimated at 3,952 million hectares (9,766 acres) or 30 percent of total land area (FAO, 2005a). The area of forest is unevenly distributed (FAO, 2005b). At the regional level, South America is the region with the highest percentage of forest cover, followed by Europe and North and Central America. Asia is the region with the lowest percentage of forest cover (FAO, 2005c). The forest environments are changing globally. Climate change is one of the reasons, and it affects world forest management. More attention has been devoted to timber as the major commercial aspect of forests rather than to other noncommercial resource values (Barnard et al., 1985). The purpose of forest management was once as simple as taking timbers, but it is now more complicated. When the forest environments change, the key trends of world forest management must also change. Now, generally speaking, the extent of forest resources refers to an overall maintaining of adequate forest cover and stocking of various forest types and characteristics, and the ultimate aim of monitoring the extent and characteristics of forest resources is to reduce unplanned deforestation, restore and rehabilitate degraded forest landscapes, manage forests sustainably, and evaluate the important function of carbon sequestration by forests, other wooded land, and trees outside forests, thereby contributing to moderating the global climate (FAO, 2005d).

This paper aims to explore the important role boundaries play in back-office framing of environmental engagement. This is of particular interest because it is not clear how organizations in an industry without standardized environmental reporting navigate their boundaries behind the scenes and why they engage with the environment the way they do. This element of their environmental identity offers important insights into the emergence of sustainability reporting.

Guided by Miles and Ringham (2019) the authors conduct an ethnography of the Montana ski industry. The ethnography includes extensive on-site observations at nine Montana ski areas and interviews with 16 ski area executives, two regulators and a land development executive.

The authors find three key boundaries – accountability structure, degree of regulatory burden and impact measurement approach – that shape the back-office economic and environmental framing of ski executives (Goffman, 1959, 1974). From these back-office frames the authors identify four front-office cultural performances – community ecosystem, quantitative ownership, approval seeking and advocacy platform – that represent the environmental engagement strategies at these resorts.

Understanding the relationships between boundaries and environmental engagement is an important step in developing appropriate industry-wide environmental accountability and sustainability expectations. The study’s findings extend to other industries that are both highly dependent on the environment and are in the early stages of developing environmental reporting standards.

Ski resorts operate in an industry that is impacted by changes in the natural environment. The authors chronicle the process by which boundaries lead to framing which leads to environmental engagement in this weather-dependent industry. The authors explain the process of environmental identity building, the result of which both precedes environmental reporting and puts such reporting into context. In this sense, the authors show how boundaries are set and maintained in the ski resort industry, and how fundamental these boundaries are to the development of individual companies' environmental engagement strategies.

Traditional architectural forms and structures develop under the influence of such physical and non-physical determinants as climate, topography structure, socio-cultural values, economy and technology, and are based on centuries of accumulated knowledge. This study is an analysis of the rural Yayla settlements of four towns in the province of Antalya, located on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. The southern inclines of the Taurus Mountain range facing the Mediterranean, are host to number of rural settlements at different altitudes that bear some region-specific architectural features. This study aims to understand settlement pattern and house design features that have developed under the specific climate, socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions of the traditional households in rural yaylas in the different bio-climatic zones of the region. The study has revealed that designs have developed over time to result in spaces that are comfortable and climate sensitive, and which attribute importance to the local resources, economy and culture; and that the housing designs have developed offer natural means of heat control and ventilation. The new understanding offered in this paper may contribute to the conservation of the local cultural features of the area, allowing their sustainable perpetuation into the future and serving as examples of good design practise for future settlements