The pilot area of Auronzo di Cadore (Belluno) - Università Ca

Preface
The mountain area of the Veneto Region covers a third of its entire surface.
Here the importance of tourism, and especially winter tourism, has
grown constantly in time, making it a primary source of alpine wealth
and a driver for the regional economy. However, in the last decade, different
studies have highlighted a phase of stagnation for what concerns
tourist fluxes, partly due to a lower attractiveness of the mountain tourism
offer. This might depend on different social and economic factors,
but also on the impacts of climate change, whose occurrence makes it
difficult to secure a sufficient snow cover throughout the entire winter
season, particularly at lower elevations.
In this context, the project ClimAlpTour (Climate change and its impacts
on tourism in the Alps), funded by the European Union as part of the
Alpine Space Programme 2007 – 2013 and led by the Veneto Region,
analysed one of today’s most burning issues: the impacts of climate
change on tourism in the Alpine arc with particular focus on the economic,
social and environmental factors related to both summer and
winter activities.
The Alpine arc is characterised by both a highly heterogeneous landscape
and very dissimilar climatic conditions, which shape the region’s
overall richness in terms of ecosystems and habitats. Thus, climate
change does not affect this territory homogeneously. The partnership
of the ClimAlpTour project, in its attempt to cover this diversity, lists
representatives of the entire Alpine region including institutions from
Italy (Veneto, Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Lombardy, Autonomous Province
of Bolzano), Austria (Vienna and Tirol), France (Rhone Alpes), Germany
(Bavaria), Slovenia, and Switzerland.
Such comprehensiveness and the involvement of several local institutions
through whose collaboration partners were able to analyse issues
and peculiarities of tourism in these areas. The project revolved around
the analysis of several pilot sites, which alpine were considered by experts
to possess particularly significant and representative tourist and
environmental conditions. The initial surveyed data included climatic
data, market data, and other economic and social parameters.