The case study regions of the face-to-face interview

In the vulnerability map, we analyzed the topic starting from the national level and broke it down into smaller regions. In order to have a more bottom-up approach and evaluate the regional specifi-cations more thoroughly, we chose 16 lospecifi-cations for face-to-face interviews (Figure 3.2). We selected these locations either because stakeholders had already initiated adaptation processes or measures in the region, because the regions were particularly affected by climate change, or because

23 The Entlebuch district might have been separated from the Luzern Region, having its specificities.

holders there recently changed their business strategies in a way that was interesting from the per-spective of climate change adaptation. Hereafter we provide a brief description of these locations and of the reasons for their selection.

Figure 3.2: The 16 case study regions in which we carried out interviews: 1. Adelboden; 2. Andermatt; 3.

Bagnes (Verbier); 4. Campo (Blenio); 5. Erlenbach im Simmental (Stockhorn); 6. Grächen; 7. Grindelwald; 8.

Locarno (Cardada); 9. Pontresina and St. Moritz; 10. Rivera (Monte Tamaro); 11. Saas Fee; 12. Sattel; 13.

Schwarzenberg; 14. Vaud Alps; 15. Wattwill (Obertoggenburg); and 16. Zermatt. In light gray, the limits of the 85 tourism regions presented in Section 3.1.2.1.

1. Adelboden – part of the Adelboden tourism region

Adelboden is a municipality located in the canton of Bern. Since 2003, it decided to focus its tourism more on health and wellness, and less on developing the winter season. However, because of the financial crisis, the main investor of the planned wellness center (the backbone of the new strategy) abandoned the project. We decided to contact stakeholders in order to investigate snowpack reduc-tion, the adopted strategy and the barriers hindering it.

2. Andermatt – part of the Uri tourism region

Andermatt is a village possessing a ski resort of 1575 hectares and 125 km of slopes. Work is current-ly underway to convert the village into a comprehensive resort town as part of the Orascom pro-ject.²⁴ The project plans to offer 490 new apartments, 25 to 30 private villas, and 6 hotels classified as 4 and 5 stars with a capacity of 844 rooms.

24 http://www.orascomdh.com/en/projects/projects-under-development/andermatt.html. Last accessed 22.12.

2011.

We initially chose to contact stakeholders because of snowpack reduction, changes in climate suita-bility for tourism activities, and problems associated with glacier melting and changes in landscape beauty. We also contacted them because of the new resort being constructed and to enquire about its relation to climate change. Moreover, we contacted them because the region is part of the ClimAlpTour²⁵ research project (Alber et al. 2011). Finally, we contacted the stakeholders as well because of their decision to cover the glaciers with 2500 m² of plastic sheets during the summer of 2005.

3. Bagnes (Verbier) – part of the Verbier St-Bernard tourism region

Verbier is an internationally renowned ski resort in the lower Valais, at 1500 m AMSL. We initially contacted the stakeholders in the region to inquire about snowpack reduction and their utilization of JusteNeige, a tool intended to optimize artificial snowmaking launched in 2009-2010 (Loubier et al.

2010).

4. Campo (Blenio) – part of the Bellinzona and Northern Ticino tourism region

This 3.5 km ski resort lies at relatively low altitude (1215 m AMSL). Since 1996 artificial snowmaking provides snow security in the resort. We contacted them to inquire about their strategies with snow-pack reduction.

5. Erlenbach im Simmental (Stockhorn) – part of the Lenk - Simmental tourism region

Stockhornbahn offered until 2004 ski-related activities. Since then, they decided to modify their strategy, to close the ski resort, and to focus on summer activity, on snowshoeing and other non ski-related winter activities. Nonetheless, summer was already previously the prevalent season. We con-tacted them to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction and because of the strategy chosen.

6. Grächen – part of the Grächen-St. Niklaus tourism region

Grächen hosts a ski resort with 42 km of slopes. In 1997 - 1998, it became evident that the terrain at a midway station of a chairlift was instable because of the presence of permafrost. As a consequence, and in the interest of the safety of the passengers, the original midway station had to be destroyed and a specially developed new one was built in 2003. In 2011 another chairlift had to be demolished because of problems generated by permafrost. We initially included the region in the analysis be-cause of their experience adapting to melting permafrost.

7. Grindelwald – part of the Grindelwald tourism region

Grindelwald is a popular municipality with strong ties to the tourism industry, situated in the Berner Oberland. It is internationally known for its landscape beauty and for its mountains, but also as a ski resort. In 2005 a glacier lake formed above the village, putting the valley in danger of a large flood.

Large investments were made with the construction of a drainage tunnel in order to catalyze this water and thus mitigate the danger.

25 The ClimAlpTour project aimed at dealing with the effects of climate change on alpine tourism, with refer-ence both to winter tourism and sports and to alpine all-seasons tourism. This project addressed the need to provide both a sound knowledge of the different aspects of the impact of climate change on alpine tourism and concrete adaptation strategies to apply in selected areas. http://www.climalptour.eu. Last accessed 27.12.2011.

We contacted stakeholders to inquire about the melting of glaciers and the consequent formation of a glacier lake, but also because the region created an organization aimed at adopting and initiating appropriate measures for counteracting climate change (the Jungfrau Climate CO2Operation), and also because it created an I-phone climate guide.²⁶

8. Locarno (Cardada) – part of the Lake Maggiore and Valleys tourism region

Cardada-Cimetta is a ski resort with 5.4 km of slopes and 4 lift facilities lying between 1340 and 1869 m AMSL. In the 1990s, part of the ski resort was dismantled. In 2005, the mountain cableway sold the skiing-related infrastructure to the ski school in order to focus on the summer season. We contacted them to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction and about changes in climate suita-bility for tourism activities.

9. Pontresina and St. Moritz – part of the Engadin St. Moritz tourism region

The Engadin St. Moritz region is well known for its tourism offer. Pontresina, a village in the region, is a pioneer in Switzerland in the area of permafrost melting and landslide protection. In 2003, the vil-lage embarked on an ambitious project to build protection dams. It also created a walking trail relat-ed to climate change.

We contacted stakeholders to inquire about the melting of permafrost, the construction of the dams and the didactic path. We contacted stakeholders from St. Moritz too, to inquire about their strate-gies with snowpack reduction and about changes in climate suitability for tourism activities.

10. Rivera (Monte Tamaro) – part of the Lake Lugano tourism region

Until 2003, Monte Tamaro was one of a dozen of ski resorts in the southern part of Switzerland (Tici-no). Then, because of many years of bad snow conditions, they specifically changed their strategy and focused exclusively on summer activities. The choice appeared to be profitable, since the num-ber of visits is now around 110 000/year.

We contacted them to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction and about the de-clared adaptation strategy to abandon skiing-related activities in favor of summer tourism.

11. Saas Fee – part of the Saas-Fee/Saastal tourism region

Saas Fee is a ski resort with 100 km of slopes and 23 lift facilities stretching from 1800 to 3500 m AMSL. We contacted stakeholders to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction and if they feel water scarcity or changes in climate suitability for tourism activities. In addition, we were interested in the region because the valley was the subject of an Econcept study (Bättig et al. 2011) on the impacts of climate change in the area. We discussed with them their possible adaptation strategy in relation to tourism, water management, biodiversity, settlements, and infrastructure.

12. Sattel – part of the Schwyz tourism region

Sattel is a small municipality located at approximately 9 km North of Schwytz and 30 East of Luzern.

By 1992, the municipality and the cableway company had already completely changed their strategy, focusing less on winter activities in favor of better and more diverse offerings in the summer. The choice has proven to be an economic success, with yearly revenues of around 4.5 Mio CHF and 70

26 http://www.jungfrau-klimaguide.ch/en/#/en/klimaguide/6656/. Last accessed 22.12.2011.

people working for the company, making it the biggest employer of the region. We initially contacted stakeholders because of snowpack reduction related investigations, because of the chosen strategy and because they took part in an internal Ernst Basler + Partner study.²⁷

13. Schwarzenberg – part of the Luzern Region tourism region

Schwarzenberg was a small ski resort composed of only one ski lift. It was in service only when natu-ral snow was available and thus did not make use of snow machines. In 2010 it closed its operations because of lack of snow. We contacted them to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduc-tion.

14. Vaud Alps – part of the Lake Geneva Region - Alps tourism region

The Vaud Alps region is composed of 5 main ski resorts (Chateau-d’Oex, les Diablerets and Glaciers 3000, Leysin-Les Mosses, Rougemont, and Villars-Gryon). We contacted them to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction, because of the early studies on the subject carried out by the region (Serquet and Rebetez 2010), and also because of the strategy prepared to address specifically the topic.

15. Wattwill (Obertoggenburg) – part of the Toggenburg tourism region

The Obertoggenburg region lies in Eastern Switzerland. It possesses around 60 km of slopes, ranging from 1090 to 2262 m AMSL. We contacted stakeholders to inquire about their strategies with snow-pack reduction because they took part in the internal Ernst Basler + Partner study.

16. Zermatt – part of the Zermatt Matterhorn tourism region

Zermatt is a municipality in the canton of Valais located at 1608 m AMSL with a very large volume of tourists. It possesses 350 km of slopes, 57 lift facilities, and an astonishing landscape. We contacted stakeholders to inquire about their strategies with snowpack reduction, possible changes in climate suitability for tourism activities, permafrost and glacier melting, but also because of the high de-pendency on tourism of the region and the hi-tech environmentally friendly Monterosa mountain house built in 2009.