As a result of climate change, ski resorts at low and medium altitudes in the Alps are losing popularity in the winter. Climate change impacts the ski resort industry, as with higher temperatures and less snow, the tourism season shrinks.
The BeyondSnow project is planning ten pilot zones for ‘after the snow,’ according to Euronews. Resorts are seeing fewer tourists at their local ski resorts and ski tourism in recent years. The European BeyondSnow project aims to assist Alpine regions in overcoming their reliance on snow.
“During the project new sustainable development paths, transition processes, and implementable solutions will be conjointly devised within ten specific pilot working areas (PWAs), spatially distributed across six Alpine countries, differing in size, development level and criticalities. Thanks to trainings and awareness-raising activities, citizens and decision-makers at the different technical and political levels will be involved in this process,” as stated in the project presentation.
The BeyondSnow project includes ten villages from six Alpine countries: France, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. They are preparing for the future of rising temperatures.
“The RDMDT represents an automated assessment tool for aware decision-making of local and regional authorities, development agencies and local stakeholders. It enables stakeholders to analyse local characteristics, data and resources in relation to current CC trends and future scenarios, highlight the various development options and recommendations matching internal and external factors and identify best practices to refer to,” the official webpage outlines in the project outcomes.
EURAC and a dozen additional partners have been working for three years to design a strategy to assist resorts in coping with the social, economic, and environmental impacts of climate change.
The Institute for Regional Development says that the project aims to increase the climate resilience of snow tourism destinations and communities to enable them to retain their attractiveness for both tourists who come for holidays and locals wishing to stay there.
Due to climate change, ski resorts in Europe must find ways to develop hiking and cycling trails without destroying meadows. Agriculture, tourism, and environmental protection are other important considerations when discussing the area’s development.
They are currently developing transition strategies. Their approach is community-based, with a focus not only on tourism but also on total settlement development, particularly in rural regions near ski slopes.
BeyondSnow, funded by the EU’s cohesion strategy (with a total budget of €2,720.730 million), promotes the development of local potential. The objective is that each village would discover its unique value, allowing travelers to discover new sights.
Beyond Snow will soon launch a digital platform that will allow vulnerable regions to rethink themselves, evaluate their resilience to climate change, and propose sustainable solutions.
The technology will be available to decision-makers in the Alps for free in the hopes of affecting policymaking.
