Climate change represents a serious challenge for winter tourism. Its economic and managerial impacts will differ between season periods due to the seasonality of snow availability and tourism demand. Therefore, the interaction of these two types of seasonality has to be modelled. With a novel approach including seasonality of demand, timing of marginal snow conditions, individual preferences and skiing frequency, we simulate impacts of altered snow conditions on skiing demand with data from a discrete choice experiment (n = 1312) conducted in Austria. Snow conditions explain 41% of overall importance of ski area attributes. Distinct patterns of seasonal skiing demand exist that differ with respect to individual skiing days and preferences. Identical snow conditions occurring in different season periods cause demand declines that differ by a factor of 20. The presented construction kit allows investigating economic impacts in combination with different climate change scenarios for weather dependent forms of tourism.

This study analyses the role of regional characteristics, particularly regional knowledge spillovers, as drivers of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in 190 European regions. A new modelling approach for knowledge spillovers that is different from the commonly used neighbourhood matrices is proposed. Therefore, by estimating the impact of drivers on TFP growth, findings reveal a strong direct effect of TFP spillovers alongside factors such as research and development (R&D) spending, cultural values or perceived quality of governance. However, the results also show that the openness of regional society to progress is a prerequisite for the effective use of existing knowledge.

La région couverte par la Convention alpine a connu un recul important des exploitations agricoles (– 40 %) entre 1980 et 2000. Des régions stables (Autriche, Suisse) côtoient des régions profondément transformées (Italie, Slovénie). Les modifications agrostructurelles ont conduit à des bouleversements majeurs dans les structures de fonctionnement (agrandissement des exploitations, abandon de surface agricole utile, partages diversifiés des types socio-économiques d’exploitations). Cela résulte de divers facteurs, qu’ils soient culturels (l’attachement aux traditions agricoles, l’identification de la société au monde agricole), politico-agricoles (Politique Agricole Commune, OMC) ou économiques (opportunités de revenus non-agricoles) et fonctionnels (taille des exploitations). Au-delà des différenciations nationales et régionales majeures au sein de l’arc alpin (abandon d’exploitations modéré à fort), les exploitations agricoles affrontent les mêmes enjeux en ce qui concerne les transformations des structures agricoles (ex : abandon d’exploitation et augmentation de la taille des exploitations restantes). En comparaison avec la moyenne à l’échelle alpine de l’évolution du nombre d’exploitations et des surfaces agricoles utiles (1980-2000), on peut observer des tendances modérées (Autriche/Suisse/Allemagne), dynamiques (Italie/Slovénie) ou non corrélées (France).

Despite various initiatives to promote the Olympic Games, achieving a support rate of at least 50% in an Olympic referendum remains difficult. Thus, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reorie...