ALPINE CONVENTION | SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN THE ALPS
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Taking the five typical aspects and in a first step their binary values (capital letter for high occurrence or lower case for low occurrence), 32 combinations can occur as potential tourism type. Some of them are obviously only a theoretic but not
ALPINE CONVENTION | SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN THE ALPS
an existing option, e.g. regions showing low occurrence for all five typical aspects will not gain significant market share. The following seven combinations are identified as the main important types of Alpine tourism:
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Type Description
Type n.
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summer season holidays al lakes + rivers summer season holidays al lakes + river / day trips out of metropolises health (and culture) based all season tourism in peripher mountain areas protected areas (national, biosphere, nature / regional) mainly summer alpine cities / larger central villages alpine cities with tourism specific additional resources mountain destinations with balanced summer / winter season mountain area with balanced summer / winter season + local attractor RN, RH or RC ski destinations in high mountains / other key product linked to a season ski (winter) + hiking and lake side (summer) near to metropolises
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Figure 51: Rough typology of Alpine tourism
These types can be described as follows: Type 1 – Foothill summer destinations: around the high mountain areas we find many foothills with attractive lakes and river basins. In the hot summer months these lakes attract holiday guests as well as population from the nearer metropolises. As higher mountains and other Alpine attractions are not far away, holiday guests often combine their stay with short trips to the inner mountain areas or nearby located Alpine cities and therefore contribute to the high season traffic peaks. Camping, farm holidays or stays in holiday homes are an important option beside stays in commercial accommodations especially for families. Type 2 – Health destinations: the combination of highly effective medical treatments and remedies and the surrounding mountains with the possibility to opt for a great variety of outdoor activities earned the Alps a worldwide reputation during the early stages of its tourist development. Often a place with a vibrant cultural life has a substantial number of long stays guests. Today, the core product of health cures is supplemented by wellness offers mainly in combination with shorter stays. Type 3 – Nature experience oriented destinations: large protected areas as national, biosphere, nature or regional parks and their surroundings as well as the traditional cultural landscapes as species rich Alpine pastures or meadows offer especially in the summer season extraordinary insights to the Alpine nature. Hiking and trekking with overnight stays in huts or bed and breakfasts at farms are a growing market. Other outdoor activities, using nature mainly as a scenery, e.g. for mountain biking, canoeing, rafting, paragliding, free climbing could create some conflicts with the preservation of valuable Alpine ecosystems. Furthermore “entrance
gates” with information centres attract short visit guests from destinations of type 1 and 2 and thereby create in high summer season enormous visitor peaks. Type 4 – Alpine cities and villages: at the border and inside the large river basins the Alps are surrounded by many highly attractive cities and larger villages. They offer a high competitive multi-optional choices to their visitors in the cities themselves by cultural offers like museums, historic buildings, theatres or concert halls. In addition, guests find many possibilities for shopping and leisure activities. This can be combined with trips to the various attractions in the periphery with lakes, rivers or mountains. The possibility of multioptional choices attracts Alpine cities to the MICE sector (meetings, incentives, conventions and events) in business travelling. Type 5 – All season inner mountain destinations: because of their peripheral location guests visiting these destinations mainly stay overnight. Because of topography, climate and infrastructure the mountains attract guests in winter, for skiing, as well as in summer to have a broad variety of mountain summer experiences from sports and nature to wellness and culture. The ropeways as basis for skiing in winter open a multitude of options to easily visit the mountains in the summer. Additionally, many high quality hotels offer wellness facilities as a back up plan in the case of bad weather conditions, which play an important role in many regions. Type 6 – Ski resorts: the location at a higher altitude combined with a snow guarantee from December to April – either by natural precipitation or mainly by artificial snow production – make the winter season the main and sometimes the only basis of tourism economy. High quality infrastructure
with modern chairlifts and ropeways, systems of artificial snow and well prepared slopes, services as ski rental, ski schools or guiding are the key to success for international competition. In addition, accommodations of all price ranges situated near lifts and slopes as well as lodging and entertainment after skiing are parts of the products. Type 7 – All season tourism in the mountains at the edge of the Alps: short stays and day trips from the metropolises and Alpine cities overlap with holiday guests staying longer. The character of this kind of tourism is similar to Type 5, but accommodation quality is often slightly lower than the one offered in the inner part of the Alps and therefore wellness plays a minor role. On weekends and during high season the overlapping of overnight guests and day visitors lead to high traffic loads and thereby negative impacts such as noise and air pollution. These seven forms of tourism are basic types describing core elements of typical Alpine tourism destinations. Most destinations try to become more competitive by covering several of the abovementioned categories. Therefore, we find aspects like nature experience or health in many summer foothill destinations or vice versa, that is winter dominated ski destinations enter the summer tourism market to win market shares and become an all season destination in the long run. The long tradition of Alpine tourism as well as very specific local or regional conditions have been a fertile ground for the development of various forms of tourism. On the border areas between the piedmonts and the higher mountains it is very common to find important tourism areas, which are also intensively used as day trip destinations. It is possible to observe the same phenomenon in areas nearer to Alpine cities. In the surroundings of the metropolises near the Alps such as Lyon, Milan, Munich, Vienna or Zurich we can find many destinations which attract tourists as well as the urban population for leisure and recreation. This leads to additional severe consequences especially in the field of traffic, not to mention housing, where prices are boosted due to second home residences to the detriment of the locals. Besides these negative aspects, it is worth stressing the strong economic impact tourism has on an area. Operators of tourist infrastructure benefit from additional day trip customers also helping to keep jobs in the off season and improving utilized capacity.
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E.2. Strengths and weaknesses of main Alpine tourism types Each Alpine tourism destination has its own strenghts and weaknesses, however they also share some of the general ones. In the context of sustainable tourism development the identification of strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) and later of the opportunities (O) and threats (T) cannot only follow economic aspects as profitability or market position. The concept of sustainability must be considered within an integrated view of tourism across the three dimensions of sustainability. Guiding questions concerning sustainable Alpine tourism are: 1. the ecological dimension of tourism: conservation of a sound and multifarious environment, nature (biological variety) and landscape, preservation of the ecological balance of high sensitive regions, environmentally friendly use of resources (air, water, soil), prevention of environmental impacts; 2. the aspects of ethical and social fairness as well as cultural adaptation: creation of fair working conditions and payment, training and qualification offers for people working in the tourism sector, transparency towards and participation of local population in decision making, safeguarding and respecting the cultural identity of locals; 3. profitability and long term economic aspects: future and long lasting profitability of businesses, increase of local and regional income to all parts of population, stimulation of investments creating an additional regional added value and by this improving the welfare of the population in tourist destinations. The general part of this chapter looks at Alpine tourism from an overall perspective. It tries to give an answer to the question “what are the main potentials but also constraints for sustainable tourism development in the Alps”. Further on a detailed analysis of the seven types of tourism listing their most important strengths and weaknesses follows.
E.2.1 General position of Alpine tourism Looking at Alps as a competitive unit in a global and continental tourism market, the following general aspects are highly relevant: