Search results

The purpose of this paper is to survey climate change impacts on winter sport tourists' activity and destination choice, to estimate shifts in customer demand and to provide recommendations and decision support for destination management.

A total of 540 skiers from Vienna, Austria were surveyed with a standardized online questionnaire. The survey also contained a discrete choice experiment a stated preference method which forces respondents into trade‐off behavior between various possible combinations of destination profiles.

The results show a strong preference for destination attributes promising sufficient (natural) snow conditions. In winters that lack snow, resorts in high destinations gain importance and travel distances lose some relevance. A large proportion of skiers would forgo skiing if it becomes more expensive. Snow independent substitutes are accepted as a short time compensation but not for the whole winter holiday. When asked to trade off additional costs and additional travel distances for a snow secure destination, the majority of winter sport tourists are willing to incur some additional cost but the majority reach thresholds at about 10 percent additional cost and 2h additional driving.

The survey shows, that a discrete choice experiment is a suitable method to cover the complexity of activity and destination choice. Therefore it is an unique individual‐oriented approach to consider customer demand and to evaluate the success of offer setting in tourism management. The sequential presentation of three related choice sets is a novel contribution in the field of choice experiments, and appears to be well suited to simulate climate change‐related effects.

Vienna, Austria’s capital, is one of the most liveable cities worldwide and has undertaken various efforts to foster the attractiveness of walking. Although the share of walking in Vienna is already high, the city aims to further increase the level of walking trips, combined with the ambitious goal of 80 per cent of Eco mobility by the year 2025. In recent years walking has been integrated into different strategies and plans (such as Vienna’s smart City Framework Strategy, Urban Development Plan 2025 and Strategy Paper Pedestrian Traffic). In addition, the City of Vienna has instituted the Mobility Agency for Vienna with its own officers for walking and cycling. Infrastructure measures were complemented by strong communication activities. 2015 was declared as the ‘Year of Walking’, with a wide range of events, products and services to promote walking. To supplement these activities, a personalised travel planning campaign was integrated to encourage people to replace short car trips with active travel modes. The ‘Year of Walking’ 2015 campaign increased the awareness about the benefits of walking among citizens and improved Vienna’s image as a city suitable for walking. The latest modal split numbers and monitoring activities show the success of the integrated approach by an increase of walking trips. As walking has positive impacts on people’s health and the development of a healthier and more liveable urban environment, the City of Vienna is on the right path to foster a sustainable urban mobility lifestyle and quality of life for its citizens.

With an increase in hot days, tropical nights, and heat waves, assumedly more residents of large cities will seek rest and recreation in higher-altitude tourism destinations during the summer. This phenomenon is referred to as the revival of ‘Sommerfrische’ (summer freshness or summer retreat). This chapter examines the impact of climate change on summer tourism in the Alps by urban residents. It scrutinizes the historical perception of the term Sommerfrische, as well as the understanding and perception of this term today, based on an extensive literature review and two focus-group discussions. The findings form the basis for specifying the attributes that can be used to describe a modern form of Sommerfrische. The results indicate that today’s understanding of what Sommerfrische could be and the attributes of Sommerfrische travel are very different from the historical phenomenon. Nowadays, summer excursions and short trips to destinations close to cities are considered to be Sommerfrische as long as they have escape from the heat as a common motive. The results demonstrate the broad interest of urban residents in Sommerfrische and also suggest avenues for further research on the adaptative behavior of town-dwellers in hot summers with respect to the extent of their actual and potential future travel behavior.