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Winter tourism

Skiing feedbacks warm the climate

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 897–898 (2023)Cite this article

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Declining snow cover poses a substantial risk for many ski resorts that often counter this trend with snowmaking, leading to increasing emissions caused by ski tourism. Research now quantifies the risks of rising temperatures to the skiing industry at the pan-European level, together with the potential and emissions of snowmaking.

The skiing industry of the European Alps emerged in the early twentieth century, 70 years after Alpine summer tourism started to develop2, and it now generates revenues of more than 30 billion euros per year (ref. 1). Skiing revenues may contribute significantly to local economies, but they form only 3% of Europe’s total direct tourism revenues of 960 billion euros (ref. 3). Participation is relatively low — the 209 million skier visits recorded translate to an average of only once every 3 years for each visitor. Scientists started to describe the risk of climate change on skiing in the 1980s4, with a rich literature of integrated studies that look at the impacts, sensitivity, industry and tourist adaptation and sustainable development of winter destinations since that time, most of them focusing on single resorts or regions.

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  1. Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands

    Paul Peeters

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  1. Paul Peeters
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Correspondence to Paul Peeters.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Peeters, P. Skiing feedbacks warm the climate. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 897–898 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01770-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01770-w

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