1185 | 960 | The future of winter sports resorts in the mountain tourism economy in France: Geographical and strategical analysis

Following in particular the research of Bourdeau (2008, 2009), Marcelpoil & coll. (2010) but also Peypoch & Spindler (2019) about mountain tourism and its evolutions in a very widely documented transition context, this communication uses the results of several geographical field studies that I carried out in the Northern Alps and in the Pyrenees over the period 2010-2022 to draw up a renewed typology of winter sports resorts which refers to the functional issues of the latter, rather than to their history, their natural setting or their urban morphology even if the all of these elements participate in it._x000D_
This unprecedented cross-checking of written and oral sources but also of empirical observations in the mountains makes it possible to consider three types of site with their strengths and their weaknesses in the strategic sense: firstly, the large altitude resorts, without difficulty of winter snow cover but whose diversification remains complicated, secondly, the small mid-mountain resorts, often linked to a village and characterized on the contrary by a wide variety of activities, and finally, thirdly, the peri-urban resorts which benefit from a reactive attractiveness of proximity often closer to the leisure economy than to tourism sector and confronted with the challenges of metropolisation, with the effects of rurbanisation or peri-urbanisation. A first conclusion of this new typology shows a positive vision of the future of mountain tourism and allows in particular to consider recommendations to avoid resorts stuck in the middle in their strategy.

André Suchet
University of bordeaux

ID Abstract: 960

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