How to reduce tourism

The latest issue of Pop’sciences mag, a scientific culture magazine published by the University of Lyon, takes a look at the horizons of tourism in decreasing mode, including winter sports. In the magazine’s columns, Emmanuelle George, a territorial economist at INRAE (Lessem), looks back at the challenges facing ski resorts, particularly with regard to the role of winter sports tourism in the local economy: “The NOTRe law has seen the creation of inter-municipal bodies, sometimes with considerable powers and resources, where winter sports tourism has become just one activity among others, now having to deal with industrial, tertiary or residential activities”.

In the same article, La difficile transition du tourisme des sports d’hiver, Philippe Bourdeau, professor at the Institut d’urbanisme et de géographie alpine de l’UGA (Pacte), observes the effects of this winter’s ski lift closures on the diversification of activities. ” This full-scale experiment has highlighted the glaring lack of public transport to access the mountains, as well as the inadequacy of structures for supervising and introducing people to outdoor activities,” he notes.

The article also focuses on one of Labex ITTEM’s flagship projects, Refuges sentinelles, and their role as ” laboratories for studying transformations in the natural environment and human activities in the high mountains” . Researchers involved in the projectare currently conducting a survey on the practice of bivouacking.

Discover the complete magazine [PDF]