Abstract This study explores decision making amongst ski area management. In particular, it examined how ski area managers are challenged by the risk and uncertainty as a result of weather and visitor activity patterns. Prospect theory suggests that response to uncertain conditions may not result from the application of rational thought processes (Tversky & Kahneman, 2000). Instead, decision makers may fall victim to any number of seemingly arbitrary rules or processes as they attempt to deal with uncertainty. Ski operations in southern British Columbia were chosen for study because of the importance of ski operations to the economy of this region as well as the challenging and variable weather events they have recently experienced. For example, this area hosts international and regional visitors as well as major events like the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Games events. As a result, there is considerable interest in creating ski conditions that are of international calibre. However, the Vancouver and the Coast Mountains faced a weather anomaly of warm, wet weather in January 2005. Nearby regions experienced equally problematic weather conditions the following December. The task here was to discover how ski area managers were coping with the uncertainty created by variable weather patterns. This study utilized qualitative methods. In total, 16 ski area managers participated in semi-structured interviews between the months of November 2006 and March 2007. Interviews were conducted within three British Columbia tourism regions: Vancouver and Coast Mountains, Thompson Okanagan, and Kootenay Rockies. The most common weather disturbances to selectively or entirely impact ski operations were high winds, cold temperatures, avalanche hazards, and lightning. Managers used both rules and tools to deal with the uncertainty created by weather conditions. In terms of rules, they often relied upon heuristic strategies (cognitive rules of thumb) to help with decision making. They tended to open and close at the same time each year for example. Often these heuristics were based on historical weather data and skier visitation rates. Many managers reported being unaffected by existing biases in their decision making or falling victim to escalation of commitment (often reported in decision making studies). These managers also relied on a variety of tools to reduce uncertainty during decision making. These tools included the use of management teams, reliance on experience and individual expertise, historical weather and skier data, and reliance upon business models. For example, most of those interviewed reported extensive efforts to enhance operational sustainability. They focused on diversification (of winter products and year round activities), slope development (summer grooming), snowmaking, and environmental sustainability initiatives. In each case, the goal seemed one of reducing uncertainty in an inherently uncertain situation. Industry and market trends were impacted by improved ski technology and the increasing popularity of internet and last minute holiday bookings.

Abstract This study explores decision making amongst ski area management. In particular, it examined how ski area managers are challenged by the risk and uncertainty as a result of weather and visitor activity patterns. Prospect theory suggests that response to uncertain conditions may not result from the application of rational thought processes (Tversky & Kahneman, 2000). Instead, decision makers may fall victim to any number of seemingly arbitrary rules or processes as they attempt to deal with uncertainty. Ski operations in southern British Columbia were chosen for study because of the importance of ski operations to the economy of this region as well as the challenging and variable weather events they have recently experienced. For example, this area hosts international and regional visitors as well as major events like the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Games events. As a result, there is considerable interest in creating ski conditions that are of international calibre. However, the Vancouver and the Coast Mountains faced a weather anomaly of warm, wet weather in January 2005. Nearby regions experienced equally problematic weather conditions the following December. The task here was to discover how ski area managers were coping with the uncertainty created by variable weather patterns. This study utilized qualitative methods. In total, 16 ski area managers participated in semi-structured interviews between the months of November 2006 and March 2007. Interviews were conducted within three British Columbia tourism regions: Vancouver and Coast Mountains, Thompson Okanagan, and Kootenay Rockies. The most common weather disturbances to selectively or entirely impact ski operations were high winds, cold temperatures, avalanche hazards, and lightning. Managers used both rules and tools to deal with the uncertainty created by weather conditions. In terms of rules, they often relied upon heuristic strategies (cognitive rules of thumb) to help with decision making. They tended to open and close at the same time each year for example. Often these heuristics were based on historical weather data and skier visitation rates. Many managers reported being unaffected by existing biases in their decision making or falling victim to escalation of commitment (often reported in decision making studies). These managers also relied on a variety of tools to reduce uncertainty during decision making. These tools included the use of management teams, reliance on experience and individual expertise, historical weather and skier data, and reliance upon business models. For example, most of those interviewed reported extensive efforts to enhance operational sustainability. They focused on diversification (of winter products and year round activities), slope development (summer grooming), snowmaking, and environmental sustainability initiatives. In each case, the goal seemed one of reducing uncertainty in an inherently uncertain situation. Industry and market trends were impacted by improved ski technology and the increasing popularity of internet and last minute holiday bookings.

This dissertation examines the role and impact of the promotion tools in the repositioning strategy of a tourism destination. Building on a theory which brings together the repositioning strategy process and the communication mix, this study is conducted through the examination of a case study based on one of the most important and innovative European ski resort: Avoriaz. The research has been made through an in-depth interview with a manager of the ski resort in charge of the communication, which has been completed by a content analysis of the communication supports edited by the resort. As a result, this study concludes that the communication tools have a main role in the implementation a repositioning strategy by having a major impact on the image of the tourism destination.

A simultaneous demand and supply model for the U.S. ski/wakeboard boat market is estimated by three-stage least squares and iterated three-stage least squares methods using publicly available data. The model is used to test if, and to what extent, certain factors impact the annual quantity of new ski/wakeboard boats demanded and supplied. Statistical analysis suggests that the model does a good job of explaining the annual quantity of new ski/wakeboard boats demanded and supplied. The findings are most immediately beneficial to manufacturers and dealers. Dealers can use the results to better forecast demand which in turn will lead to more efficient production planning for manufacturers.

The Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model is an innovation created in response to the Canadian Sport Policy (Canadian Heritage, 2007). The LTAD is an “athlete centered, coach driven, and administration, sport science, and sponsor supported” (Canadian Sport Centres, 2006, p. 33) athlete-development model. Since little research has been completed focusing on this model (viz., Black & Holt, 2009) this thesis had the purpose to better understand the adoption of the LTAD by cross-country ski (XCS) coaches. Two articles present a case study of three XCS club’s coaches, and a descriptive qualitative analysis of XCS coaches (N=13). Both analyses used Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations theoretical framework to structure the narrative-interview guide, coding structure, and thematic analysis. Two key results of the thesis were an understanding of the link between a club’s characteristics and a coach’s perceived attributes of the LTAD, and secondly a proposed classification system for XCS coaches.

This Master’s thesis explores environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) in the alpine sport industry. A mixed methods case with a single alpine sport provider in Quebec was performed. The first study is a qualitative examination of how and why ECSR is employed and communicated. Results indicate ECSR is strategically motivated, and as such, the focal organization runs the risk of using several greenwashing techniques in communications that could jeopardize gaining competitive advantage. The second study quantitatively investigates alpine sport consumers’ environmental expectations, engagement with environmental products, and perceptions of the focal organization’s environmental reputation. The results show the focal organization’s customers do indeed have environmental expectations, but believe the focal organization’s environmental reputation remains neutral. The thesis supports arguments of corporate social responsibility (CSR) being strategically motivated and other findings of skiers having conflicting environmental values. Lastly, the thesis provides insight regarding greenwashing, a phenomenon that remains unexplored in sport management.

Listeners with severe-sloping losses often don’t perceive high-frequency sound cues. Conventional amplification fails to provide these cues due to loudness discomfort experienced by the listener, and/or acoustic feedback. Alternative signal-processing solutions include shifting higher frequencies down to lower frequencies, or providing electrical stimulation via a speech processor. Three experiments were carried out on adult hearing-impaired listeners to determine the best way of providing high-frequency information: conventional amplification, frequency compression or cochlear implantation.

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Confrontées tout à la fois à l’évolution des attentes des clientèles, aux prévisions largement médiatisées et parfois alarmistes d’évolutions climatiques, qu’à la rationalisation des dépenses publiques, les stations de sports d’hiver se trouvent aujourd’hui devant un impératif d’adaptation. Phénomène touchant l’ensemble des stations, celui-ci vise tout particulièrement les stations qualifiées de « stations de moyenne montagne ». Implantées le plus souvent à des altitudes ne leur permettant pas de disposer d’une fiabilité d’enneigement, leur avenir apparaît en effet, à moyen voire court terme, particulièrement menacé. Pourtant, eu égard à leur vocation originelle d’aménagement du territoire, leur maintien est fondamental : pour cela, la diversification apparaît comme la solution d’adaptation privilégiée. Cependant, des interrogations persistent : comment préserver la dynamique économique des communes et territoires concernés, pour l’heure polarisés par l’économie hivernale des sports d’hiver ? Angle d’approche privilégié de la diversification, les interrogations liées à sa nature ont été au cœur de nombreux travaux, conduisant à l’élaboration de véritables guides de bonnes pratiques de la diversification. Moins traitée, la question de sa mise en œuvre n’en est pas moins essentielle. En effet, par l’élargissement du cercle des acteurs concernés et le bouleversement des échelles territoriales, la gouvernance en place est amenée à évoluer. Cependant, bien loin de constituer un processus uniforme, nous supposons que ces différents facteurs entraînent une spécification des trajectoires des stations, à laquelle participent tout autant des facteurs endogènes qu’exogènes au territoire. S’inscrivant dans une optique de recherche finalisée, cette thèse s’attache ainsi à analyser les modalités de renouvellement de la gouvernance territoriale, conduisant à passer d’une gouvernance station à une gouvernance de la diversification. Pour cela, nous privilégions un double niveau d’analyse : le niveau méso, nous amenant à mobiliser un corpus théorique rattaché aux sciences politiques et à questionner les différents dispositifs d’accompagnement dédié mis en œuvre par l’acteur supra-local. Le niveau micro, quant à lui nous conduit à nous focaliser sur la nature des relations liant les différents acteurs d’un même territoire en faisant ici appel aux travaux réalisés en économie des proximités. Le croisement de ces deux approches a enrichi notre compréhension des mécanismes au cœur de l’évolution de la trajectoire touristique des stations. Cela nous a permis d’identifier les leviers à même d’impulser une évolution de la gouvernance et notamment de mettre en lumière le rôle primordial des acteurs supra-locaux dans cette dynamique. Conformément à un objectif d’opérationnalisation des résultats de la recherche, nous avons également constitué une grille de lecture de la gouvernance de la diversification, à destination des acteurs de terrains comme des décideurs publics. / Ski resorts have to adapt themselves because of the evolution of customers’ expectations, the widely publicized alarmist predictions of climate change, and the reduction of public funding help. Mid-elevation ski resorts, or usually those located at an elevation where snow is not guaranteed, are the most concerned with this adaptation. Their future seems to be, at short or mid-term objective, particularly threatened. Their existence is essential for maintaining the mountain economy: for that, diversification emerges as the preferred solution of adaptation. However, questions still exist today such as how to preserve the dynamic of the mountain economy depending of winter activity.Until now, interrogations about nature of diversification have been undertaken, and numerous good practice guides have been created. Nevertheless, the question of implementation is essential. An evolution of the governance is necessary due to both the inclusion of other activities that involve more professionals and an increased tourism area. We suppose that more than being a uniform process, these different factors lead to a specification of resorts’ trajectories which are impacted both by endogenous and exogenous factors.Constituting a finalized research, this thesis aims to analyze the evolution of the spatial governance and thechange of ski resort governance into diversification governance. For that, we focus on two levels of analyses: an intermediate level has enabled us to question the politics adopted by the different local governments thanks to the mobilization of a theoretical corpus attached to political science. The other led us to focus us on a local level the nature of relationships between actors inside the same territory, based on the work done in Economics proximities.The intersection of these two approaches enriches our understanding of the mechanisms at the heart of the evolution of the tourism trajectory of resorts. This allowed us to identify the options to stimulate such a renewal of the governance, and in particular to highlight the central role of political action in this dynamic.In accordance with an objective of operationalization of the research results, we have also established a framework to analyze the diversification governance, for land actors such as policy makers.

Vegetation cover of 24 ski slopes both with artificial and natural snow was studied; on each slope 5 phytocenological relevés measuring 4 x 4 metres were taken. A method of direct gradient analysis (RDA) was used to detect differences in composition of phytocenological reléves on the ski slopes with natural or artificial snow. However, no impact of use of artificial snow on vegetation was identified. During the winter season of 2009 and of 2010 samples of artificial and natural snow were taken for chemical analyses. The chemical composition differed significantly; artificial snow contained more NO3-, SO42- and Ca2+ ions and its pH was more alkaline in comparison with natural snow.