Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism, SME & Tourism, Faculty of Business and Management, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
Faculty of Tourism, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Schachenmeierstraße 35, 80636, München, Germany.
Int J Biometeorol. 2024 Mar;68(3):547-564. doi: 10.1007/s00484-022-02371-6. Epub 2022 Oct 1.
Summer skiing on glaciers is a leisure activity highly dependent on natural factors like weather and glacier conditions. While the literature agrees that climate change is shaping the fate of summer skiing, longer time series covering both the supply and demand side of glacier/summer skiing, and research that combines natural and non-natural factors affecting the summer ski market are missing. To close this research gap, we conducted a detailed supply-side analysis of nine Austrian glacier ski areas focusing on the number of operating days (in the summer half-year, as well as for meteorological and astronomical summer ski definitions), show how these numbers evolve over time, test how they correlate with meteorological and glaciological data using time-series regression models on a yearly and monthly basis, and highlight how managerial decisions come into play when trying to explain the summer ski supply's decline. Between 2002 and 2019, summer ski operating days in Austrian glacier ski areas declined by 48.3% in the summer half-year, 65.2% in the meteorological, and 62.3% in the astronomical summer parallel to rising mean temperatures and shrinking glaciers. This decrease is strongest in June to September and weakest in May and October but in two glacier ski areas, the operating days in the summer season remain constant or are even on the rise. This is in line with model results indicating that meteorological and glaciological data only explain parts of the variance of the decline trends. Operators' agency, strategies, and decisions play an important role underlining that global warming is not monocausally determining summer ski operation.
夏季冰川滑雪是一项高度依赖天气和冰川条件等自然因素的休闲活动。虽然文献一致认为气候变化正在影响夏季滑雪的命运，但缺乏涵盖冰川/夏季滑雪供需双方的更长时间序列数据，以及将影响夏季滑雪市场的自然和非自然因素结合起来的研究。为了弥补这一研究空白，我们对 9 个奥地利冰川滑雪区进行了详细的供给侧分析，重点关注夏季滑雪区的运营天数（夏季半年和气象学及天文夏季滑雪的定义），展示这些数字如何随时间演变，使用时间序列回归模型按年和按月测试它们与气象和冰川数据的相关性，并强调在试图解释夏季滑雪供应减少时，管理决策如何发挥作用。2002 年至 2019 年间，奥地利冰川滑雪区的夏季滑雪运营天数在夏季半年减少了 48.3%，在气象学夏季减少了 65.2%，在天文夏季减少了 62.3%，同期平均气温上升，冰川缩小。这种减少在 6 月至 9 月最强，在 5 月和 10 月最弱，但在两个冰川滑雪区，夏季滑雪季的运营天数保持不变，甚至在上升。这与模型结果一致，表明气象和冰川数据仅解释了下降趋势变化的部分原因。运营商的机构、策略和决策发挥了重要作用，强调了全球变暖并不是单一决定夏季滑雪运营的因素。
