Effects of different scenarios on the operating dates of ski areas

Abstract

This chapter focuses on one part of the Tourism model, the ski area actors, their break-even points and operability. In the model, the operability is determined by the snow-making technology, the number of snow guns per hectare, the water availability and the required initial snow depth for skiing. According to the chosen societal scenario, ski areas find different preconditions concerning, e.g. the permission to expand snow-making facilities which is reflected in changed break-even points and operability. With four simulation runs, which vary by climate variant (baseline vs. five warm winters) and societal scenario (performance vs. public welfare), a corridor of ski areas potential future developments is spanned. The maps show a small-scale strongly differentiated deviation of opening days in the 2050s compared to the 2010s in the four runs. In all runs, many ski areas will be facing a distinct lower number of opening days so that they will have to reach their break-even point faster or to shut down. As a result, todays concentration tendencies among ski areas on those being more snow reliable will even be intensified until the 2050s.