Séminaire “Climate Change Risk for North American Ski Tourism Markets”

Global climate change is underway and with additional future climate change unavoidable, the tourism industry, investors, and community leaders have many questions about the risk climate change poses to winter sports businesses and ski tourism destinations.
This seminar will examine the differential climate change risk among the multi-billion dollar regional ski markets in North America. Understanding the implications of climate change for inter-market ski tourism competitiveness requires a continental scale analysis. The SkiSim ski operations model is used to examine the implications of climate change for ski season length, snowmaking requirements, and operational ski terrain at 349 ski areas across the United States. Nine global climate models were used to force a regional climate model and hydrological model (VIC) to develop high-resolution (4.17-km) daily temperature, precipitation and natural snow depth inputs for the 2020-2049 period. The comparative climate change risk among the five regional markets and major ski conglomerates will be discussed.
To examine the dynamics between changing ski conditions and operational ski areas with the spatial distribution of skier visits, the SkiSim model was coupled with an Agent Based Model in the regional market of Ontario (Canada). Daily snow conditions reports, skier visit data, and 2400 skier surveys were used to train the model. The implications of alternate ski market development and climate change scenarios for the distribution of skier visits, incidence of crowding, and the need for infrastructure investment and other adaptation options will be discussed. 
In every regional market, climate change alters the sustainability and competitiveness of a large number of ski areas. Some ski tourism destinations will need to adapt to take advantage of market share gains, while for others it is clear that climate change means that “Quae non possunt non manent” (things that can’t last don’t).