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This paper aims to examine tourists’ preferences for package holidays offering different bundles of activities at a winter mountain destination. A winter mountain destination is usually chosen for snow sports, particularly skiing, but increasingly more tourists want to fully exploit their holiday opportunity with an authentic and comprehensive experience of the place. After collecting qualitative data on how tourists spend their typical day, quantitative research is conducted to segment the demand on the basis of tourists’ preferences for bundles of activities undertaken during a winter mountain holiday.

The study uses a mixed method. Two focus groups are included to understand how tourists spend their time at a winter destination; results are then used to identify the components of the holiday, which are then combined in eight packages using an orthogonal array. A questionnaire is administered to a sample of 273 tourists at a well-known mountain destination to measure their preference for different packages. Results are analyzed using factor analysis, conjoint analysis and cluster analysis.

The most significant findings are as follows: winter mountain holidaying is a highly segmented market. Even at a mountain destination strongly associated with skiing, there are many tourists who do not ski and spend their time doing something else; food and beverage, and all their related activities, are at the top of all tourists’ interests, and passionate skiers very highly rate the experience of tasting, eating, understanding and buying local food; and there are four segments of winter mountain holiday tourists who show very differentiated interests for the different activities that can be experienced at a mountain location.

This paper considers what lies beyond sport at winter mountain destinations, and it reveals new possibilities for configuring bundles of activities to attract different segments of tourists.

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 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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of exposure-related and consumer-related factors on the return of sponsorship investment through their influence on viewers’ attention for sponsor signage.

Data were collected through an experimental study (n=92) involving eye-tracking and a questionnaire, and were analyzed using regression analysis.

The results show that viewers’ attention for sponsor signage is affected by the signage color of concurrent sponsors, as well as viewers’ brand familiarity, and sport involvement. In particular, the findings reveal that viewers’ attention for sponsor signage increases with greater color contrast between concurrently visible sponsor signage. Further, signage receives more attention if viewers are familiar with the brand and less involved with the sponsored event. Given that attention is an important prerequisite for further processing of sponsorship information, these findings have important implications for managers seeking to evaluate the return on their sponsorship investment.

When assessing the return on a sponsorship investment, marketers should consider the characteristics of surrounding sponsor signage and the audience with regard to their impact on viewers’ attention for their own signage. Ideally, marketers should attempt to create a greater color contrast between their own signage and its surroundings in order to maximize viewer attention.

This paper provides valuable information on the importance of concurrently visible sponsor signage and audience characteristics for the return on investment of sponsorships through their impact on viewers’ attention.

Scholars have examined the relationship between sports and urban development and proposed to use sport programs and events as a catalyst to revitalize communities, upgrade urban infrastructure, promote city image, shift economic structure, nurture an active lifestyle, and enhance societal harmony and solidarity. Yet, previous studies were usually focused on mega sport events and were typically conceptual, theoretical and lack of practical applications. This study was designed to attain in-depth understanding on how a specific sport, table tennis, can be systematically organized and utilized to influence urban development through a qualitative research injury.

This investigation was carried by conducting in-depth interviews of the executive director of the Shanghai Table Tennis Association, on-site observations and comprehensive review of literature. Development of interview questions took into consideration the conceptual framework postulated by Preuss (2007) that contains six structures of urban development through sports. Triangulation analyses were conducted to cross validate the three information sources to generate themes and assertions.

While the identified practices were consistent with Preuss' (2007) framework, specific management activities earnestly practiced in Shanghai are centered on utilizing cultural and historical heritage, star power, branding strategies, staging tournaments, hallmark events, technical innovation and government relations to achieve the objectives of table tennis as a sport and the objectives of urban development through table tennis.

The findings of this study help fill the void that a theory usually cannot specify, namely, detailed, unambiguous practices. While table tennis may be a viewed as a small sport in many parts of the world, it has a strong, unprecedented historical heritage in Shanghai. This city has made a prudent choice and investment in this sport, which has proved to be effective. Other cities in the world should look into their own social, cultural and historical heritage and develop sport strategies, operations and programs accordingly.

Lenzerheide is an Alpine destination located in Graubünden. It rapidly developed approximately 40 years ago with the rise of winter sports and the affluence of Swiss families, particularly in the German-speaking parts of the country. The destination today is characterized by a considerable number of second homes and faces the challenge of an eroding market base. The need to renew or even reinvent the destination poses a major challenge for the concerned local actors and organizations. On the one hand, they have to agree on a strategy that goes beyond simple promotion and additional sports activities and therefore requires a major infrastructure development program. On the other hand, the current constellation of actors, public institutions, and private organizations, with their differing and diverging interests, barely ensures a common understanding and the effective realization of major projects. Stakeholder theory is a useful approach used here to understand the challenges in Lenzerheide.

Tourism has become a global industry, with the destination being at the core of the tourism product. Due to an increasingly competitive market place, ensuring destination competitiveness is vital. The aim of this study is to detect which factors destination suppliers perceive as important for the competitiveness of their destination.

A quantitative research paradigm was chosen. A survey was conducted using a self‐administered questionnaire containing questions referring to the five dimensions of the destination competitiveness model by Ritchie and Crouch. The convenience sample comprised n=71 stakeholders of the supply‐side. Indices for the dimensions were computed. A MANOVA was conducted to test for differences in the perception of the destination competitiveness dimensions. Post‐hoc tests were employed to test between which groups the differences lay.

Six stakeholder groups were detected. The estimated model suggested that significant differences regarding the stakeholder's perception of destination competitiveness and the dimensions core resources, destination management, and destination policy exist.

The sample size is rather small and, moreover, future research should additionally include the demand‐side of destinations.

Communication from the destination managing organization is recommended in order to promote a more coherent picture of the destination toward the tourists.

This study emphasizes the complexity of the tourism product. Moreover, it is shown that differences in the perception of the destination competitiveness dimensions occur based on the industry the respondent works in. Overall, the usefulness for measuring destination competitiveness by the Ritchie and Crouch model is confirmed.

Business models describe how value is delivered to customers/consumers. When considering sport tourism, the focus on delivering value shifts to the sport experiences being offered in a destination. The purpose of this paper is to fulfil a void that links concept of business models to the area of sport tourism management by integrating notions of experience.

To merge these areas, a review of literature identifies key approaches and missing links. This paper determines research gaps to propose a new holistic research agenda for sport services – specifically relevant to sport tourism.

This paper addresses types of sport experiences, economic dimensions of experiences and business models to determine capabilities of delivering different types of experiences. These inter-related fields of analysis represent a platform for both academic and business stakeholders to shape the future of delivering sport tourism experiences based on seeking a wider range of motivations in a specific spatial and activity context.

A series of research questions and proposals are identified to support the need for future research. Extending understandings of experience in relation to consumer demand has the potential to result in practical elements of sought after experiences being incorporated into business models – aimed at delivering service value.