Abstract
The importance of the tourism industry is increasing globally, and many tourist destinations owe their growing success to the availability of natural resources: guaranteed sunshine during the summer season, or snow during wintertime. However, rising temperatures and other indirect impacts of climate change will more than likely alter the ecosystems of many worldwide destinations. In some regions, the Alps for example, the future of tourism products such as skiing will be threatened. It is for this reason that Alpine tourism industry, along with many others around the world, is creating adaptation strategies that can cope with the changes. At the same time, the scientific community is expressing more interest in the topic while carrying out research on the impacts of climate change on the tourism sector.This publication includes contributions presented and discussed at the conference, “Facing Climate Change and the Global Economic Crises: Challenges for the Future of Tourism”, organised by the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC Research) together with the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism of the University of Innsbruck and the University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur. The scholarly papers, which have passed a two-stage, double-blind peer review process, are divided in two main sections: the first section includes contributions related to the effects of climate change on tourism worldwide, while the second focuses on the impacts of climate change and possible adaptation strategies in the Alpine tourism sector.The conference and this publication have been financed by the Alpine Space project ClimAlpTour.