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The purpose of this paper is to provide a first evaluation of the effectiveness of the early bird discount on ski lift tickets by estimating the impact on hotel overnight stays of the Saas-Fee destination.

The difference-in-differences (DID) approach is used to compare winter sport destinations with and without the price reduction before and after the introduction of the price discount. The sample is composed of the 54 largest Swiss winter sport destinations for the seasons 2013/2014 and 2016/2017.

DID estimations show an increase in overnight stays of Swiss residents by 50 per cent as compared to the control group. Quantile regression estimations for the conditional upper part of the overnight stays distribution reveal a lower average treatment effect of 38 per cent. However, DID estimates for total overnight stays (domestic and foreign) are much smaller – about 17 per cent – indicating that the price reductions are not effective in attracting foreign visitors. Results are not sensitive when taking into account a large number of control variables (elevation, size and snow making capacity).

As tourists visiting winter sport destinations are interested in a mix of activities, lift ticket revenues or number of skier days should be used as an alternative outcome measure.

As positive effects on local tourism demand are mainly limited to Swiss tourists, such price strategies should be carefully considered. In the long term, the skiing market will stagnate or even shrink for several reasons (population ageing, climate change and changes in leisure preferences).

This paper provides a first quantitative evaluation of price discounts in tourism research. Knowledge about the discounts and consumers reactions to sales promotions are of great interest to marketing managers in today’s competitive ski market.

In this chapter, the performance of Swiss mountain ropeway companies in the period from 2011 to 2016 have been analyzed. The sample includes 194 observations from 43 companies, covering about 90% of the market. In order to explain the levels of cash-flow returns, the degree of self-financing and revenue growth for ropeway companies, firm-specific characteristics, meteorological data, infrastructure information and market-specific factors were taken into account. The results, which are based on a general method of moments estimates, reveal that a high equity ratio and consistent capital expenditures are important for performance. Also, the market environment, including such factors as exchange rates and brand recognition of ski areas in Europe and Asia, are important for firm performance. Overall, the Swiss market is a unique country for this type of analysis, given either that the required data on mountain ropeway companies in other countries are unavailable or that a few rather large companies dominate the market.

The purpose of this paper is to propose lessons learned on how innovation can help facilitate sustainable tourism in regions. Sustainable tourism is a promising concept for a resilient future of tourism destinations, however, its practical implication remains a challenge.

To gain these practical lessons on innovation, a so-called “inspirational journey” was organized. An interdisciplinary group of experts went to the Austrian Alps and many local initiatives and innovative ideas were presented.

As a result of this journey, the authors advocate five lessons that can help improve sustainable tourism in the future.

Being a source of inspiration for policy-makers and planners, these lessons can be applied to other regions.

The added value of this viewpoint paper is that it provides practical examples on how innovation can help improve sustainable tourism in the future.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of ski businesses and of the accommodation sector in Tyrol to warm winter seasons and to draw conclusions for climate change vulnerability.

Operational indicators of ski areas and overnight stays in the destinations were analysed in the record warm winter season 2006/2007. Comparing the climatic anomalies of that season with climate change scenarios, the season can serve as an analogue year for average future winter seasons. By interpreting changes in the analogue year, the potential vulnerability of the winter tourism industry in the study area can be assessed.

While the impact on ski areas was relatively small on the province level, the analysis on the basis of individual businesses showed a high sensitivity of small to medium and low‐altitude ski areas as well as of ski areas with insufficient snowmaking facilities. Significant differences in the impact on the accommodation sector were found on the district level, with longer‐lasting negative effects on the regional tourism economy in two districts with low‐altitude ski areas. Climate change increases the risk of financial losses for individual ski businesses as well as for tourism‐dependent regional economies, as happened in the 2006/2007 season. As the season represents an extreme event, the long‐term effect of a rising frequency of warm winters on demand cannot be assessed.

The paper presents a valuable and inexpensive approach to assess the impact of warm winter seasons on the supply side as well as on the demand side.

This paper aims to provide a reliable statistical model for time-series prices of short-stay accommodation and overnight stays in a eurozone country.

Exploiting the unit root feature, the cointegrated vector autoregressive model solves the problem of misspecification. Subsequently, variables are modelled for a long-run equilibrium with included deterministic variables.

The empirical results confirmed that overnight stays for foreign tourists were positively associated with the prices of short-stay accommodation.

The major limitation lies in the data vector and its time horizon; its extension could provide a more specific view.

Findings can assist practitioners and hotel executives by providing the information and rationale for adopting seasonal volatility pricing. Structural breaks in price time-series have practical implications for setting seasonal-pricing schemes. Tourists could benefit either from greater price stability or from differentiated seasonal prices, which are important in the promotion of the price attractiveness of the tourist destination.

The originality of the paper lies in the applied unit root econometrics for tourism price time-series modelling and the prediction of short-stay accommodation prices.

In a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research conducted a written survey of the Austrian hotel industry (hotels and similar establishments). The sample comprised more than 3,000 establishments in the three to five star category.

This article presents the results of an analysis for Swedish travel patterns during the period from 1989 to 1994. The main points dealt with include questions concerning the degree to which travellers are bound to specific destinations, stability, the effects of developments in the outside world, and the dynamics of travel.

Stubaital is among the top destinations in Austria, depending heavily on winter tourism. Families and individual tourists who seek hiking or skiing are the core target segments. After merging two DMOs that previously managed separate parts of the area, problems of cooperation and coordination between actors from different regions occurred. This was partly due to different interests rooted in different resource endowments. The main goal of the DMO has been to strengthen the summer season in order to reduce dependency on winter tourism. Destination governance therefore must foster cooperation and joint planning activities among the stakeholders. The Stubaital case illustrates stakeholders’ perceptions of power constellations and patterns of communication among stakeholders and their influences on destination development.

The Olympic Region of Seefeld is a popular winter but also a strong summer destination. Together with the city of Innsbruck, Seefeld hosted several Olympic mega-events and gained a strong reputation as an Olympic region, with a main focus on Nordic combination competitions. Seefeld’s strengths include the Nordic cross-country skiing slopes that provide the ideal basis for high-altitude trainings for top sports athletes. Since 2006 five municipalities have been represented by the DMO, which is managed by two CEOs. Individual and group behavior can be observed in the region. Seefeld’s destination network displays a sufficient density where a few key leading actors have come to symbolize the network nodes linking different stakeholder groups.