The majority of us associate with the Alps romantic mountain cabins, scenic valleys, small villages, which blend into the mountains, of course winter sports, tourism, alpine horns, the Tour de France and wonderful diversity, species richness and originality, peace and serenity. The inevitably association with tourism by people from around the world, however, only contributes 3 – 4% to the over GDP of the Alps regions. Many do not know that the number of the inhabitants of the small towns are dramatically declining, so is the use of agricultural land and the people who live here are facing major challenges. What to do in order to not only use the relevant regions in Germany, France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol and Slovenia as transit regions for the north-south traffic, to stop the depopulation and to keep and preserve the originality of the region? According to studies a minimum of 700 inhabitants are necessary for a healthy and sustainable community development. Most communities do not achieve these populations anymore so that there is a clear need for creative plans, based on local-and regional-specific cultural and traditional developments.
Alpine tourism is changing
The tourism centers of Val d’Isère (F), Monte Rosa (I), Wilder Kaiser (A), Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany), Heidi Land (CH) and Kranjska Gora (SLO) have something new in common: They and 17 other destinations in the Alps are pilot regions in the EU project ClimAlpTour.
An international research team not only examines how climate change affects tourism in the Alps, but also – within the pilot areas – with which adaption strategies alpine destinations can specifically deal with climate change. For example, in the Bavarian Grainau a nature park with climate change nature trail is planned. Under investigation is what kind of natural impetus a tourist park can provide to the Karwendel on the Bavarian side.
The University of Munich, Department of Tourism, is one of the partners and is responsible for the analysis of the influence factors. At the same time researchers searched for the “adaptive flexibility” in the pilot regions, especially for answers to the questions: What is the change processes driving, which slows them down and how can we accelerate change? The interviews in the 22 locations just have been completed. Mayors, tourism service providers, water suppliers, cable car and ski lift operators, NGOs, as well as infrastructure development and landscape designers were interviewed.
