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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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is the first paper to discuss a potential regional and structural shift of ski tourism in Sweden.