Glacier tourism in the face of climate change

As part of his thesis, which began in October 2018, Emmanuel Salim (Edytem) is observing the impact of climate change on glacier tourism in the Alps, operators’ adaptation strategies and visitors’ perceptions.

” The initial results analyzed show that visitors to major sites such as Montenvers-Mer-de-Glace, the Aletsch glacier or the Rhône glacier come, for the most part, with the idea of seeing the glacier before it disappears, that their aesthetic perception of the landscape remains mostly good despite its “engulfment” and that numerous adaptation strategies are being developed by tourism operators to meet the constraints of climate change,” explains Emmanuel Salim.

During a recent mission to New Zealand, he was able to compare the adaptation processes of its glacier tourism hotspots with the strategies developed in the Alps.