Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1994. / Typescript. Title from cover. Title from title screen (viewed Sept. 5, 2007). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-220). Online version of the print original.

The aim of this essay is to study population change in tourism intensive mountain municipalities. Then to investigate whether center displacement takes place from the municipality center to the area with growing tourism. Areas of growing tourism have in this study been delimited to ski resorts. To answer the study’s purpose and questions, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used. Population statistics have been used to explain population change in Swedish mountain municipalities. Population statistics showed that there are four mountain municipalities that have a shrinking population in the municipality and in the municipality center, while there is a ski resort with population growth in the municipality. These mountain municipalities are Dorotea, Malung-Sälen, Storuman and Härjedalen. Interviews with officials from these municipalities have been used as a complement to analyze the findings from the population statistics. The result of the interviews shows that the ski resorts have characteristics of being so-called ‘center’ with reference to the center-periphery model. At the same time, it also appears that the informants do not think that it is possible to talk about any tourism-driven center displacement. At least not with regard to public service. The municipality house will be remain located where it is today. Based on the given results, this essay conclude that ski resorts should be regarded as commercial centers and that the municipality center is the public center. From this aspect this study also conclude that there is possible to talk about a patriell center displacement from the municipality center to the ski resorts. Which, based on this study, is explained as commercial. The study also conclude that the commercial supply is dependent on the tourist visitors and those who work on the ski resorts, where the result shows that much of those who live in the ski resorts work in the touristindustry. In this way, the commercial center displacement also becomes tourism-driven.

Ski areas attract and cater to tourists and are often powerful symbols of cultural identity and place-based meaning. Within contexts of mountain tourism development, ski areas also communicate messages to orient visitors and residents to special features and qualities of the natural environment. This research specifically focuses on how Vermont ski areas and their neighboring rural communities use language, symbolism and imagery, within the context of website communications, to shape cultural meanings of nature and place. A sample of small, medium, and large ski areas, representing a range of development sizes, locations, and recreational offerings, were paired with their adjacent rural communities. A qualitative content analysis and a textual analysis of photographic images and written texts from ski area and town websites examined presentations of “nature” and place. Website presentations were compared across ski areas of different sizes, and between towns and ski areas. Findings show that portrayals of “nature” differ by the size of the ski area, but are similar across rural towns – though towns tended to produce a discourse about “nature” divergent from that of ski areas. In addition, both ski resort and town websites used images and texts of “Vermont” symbolically in constructing their place identity, though they did this in different ways. This study contributes a better understanding of the ways that ski areas and rural communities work both independently and collaboratively to create and sustain meaningful physical places and cultural myths. Aligning public communications electronically to present a more unified place identity to visitors and residents alike has potential planning and management implications for tourism development, especially in rural regions in Vermont and elsewhere.

Whistler Blackcomb Resort experiences the highest skier visits of any resort in North America and consequently demand at the ski school is high. Due to various factors, the daily number of lesson participants is highly variable and the best number of instructors to staff each day is correspondingly difficult to estimate. The consequences of scheduling incorrectly could lead to either overstaffing or understaffing. Overstaffing results in unnecessary costs; understaffing results in lost sales and customer dissatisfaction. A scheduling tool that can assist the Ski School in staffing decisions, therefore, is developed to minimize excess costs. Daily demand predictions are made using a forecasting model and a staffing policy is applied to it to obtain a recommended staffing level. The demand forecasting model is a regression model that takes into account pre-bookings, day of the week, holidays, and yesterday's demand. The staffing rules are determined through a Newsvendor-type model derived from a marginal cost analysis of the trade-off between overstaffing and understaffing applied to the daily demand forecasts. The project is intended to formalize a systematic approach to staffing for certain lesson types (pods) one day in advance. It will assist the Whistler Blackcomb Ski and Snowboard School, as a decision support tool, in the development of daily instructor schedules that rninimize any unnecessary costs.

No description available.

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.

Whistler Blackcomb Resort experiences the highest skier visits of any resort in North America and consequently demand at the ski school is high. Due to various factors, the daily number of lesson participants is highly variable and the best number of instructors to staff each day is correspondingly difficult to estimate. The consequences of scheduling incorrectly could lead to either overstaffing or understaffing. Overstaffing results in unnecessary costs; understaffing results in lost sales and customer dissatisfaction. A scheduling tool that can assist the Ski School in staffing decisions, therefore, is developed to minimize excess costs. Daily demand predictions are made using a forecasting model and a staffing policy is applied to it to obtain a recommended staffing level. The demand forecasting model is a regression model that takes into account pre-bookings, day of the week, holidays, and yesterday's demand. The staffing rules are determined through a Newsvendor-type model derived from a marginal cost analysis of the trade-off between overstaffing and understaffing applied to the daily demand forecasts. The project is intended to formalize a systematic approach to staffing for certain lesson types (pods) one day in advance. It will assist the Whistler Blackcomb Ski and Snowboard School, as a decision support tool, in the development of daily instructor schedules that rninimize any unnecessary costs. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Tourism contributes more and more to the economy of the states, which confirms also his 9% contribution to world GDP. Significant part of the tourism is also winter tourism represented by ski resorts. The main aim of this diploma thesis is to define relations of winter tourism in Slovakia, concretely in Zarnovica district and to determine its exact impacts on district. The nuance of the diploma thesis is to evaluate impact of winter tourism on business subjects and also population. The partial aim is to evaluate operational effectiveness of ski resorts in district, which contribute to development of the region and to offer a relevant recommendations. The thesis is based on a combination of quality and quantity approaches. Comparison analysis with foreign countries is also used. Data are acquired from statistics of Statistical office of Slovak republic and from surveys, which are helpful in accomplishing set goal. In methodological point of view, there are going to be applied basic statistical approaches.

The main goal of my work is to set the criteria which have an influence on the profit of the ski resorts. The topic deals with building valuation, public database and data about air temperature. The part of the thesis is about building valuation of two companies that own chosen ski resorts. The valuation is done by the definite valuation regulation, single objects in the way given by the valuation notice. For main influential criteria was needed to get the information about profit and expense, this information was necessary for assessment of the company profit. From this information we can say that gross profit relies on the rent which both companies have to pay for ski lift and lift area. Assessment of criteria is about the location of the ski resorts. The most important criteria are the accommodation capacity and the weather. The accommodation capacity is going together with attendance. Because of the possibility of sleeping over the visitors of the ski resorts, the weather and the air temperature have an influence on the snow quality and this is going together with the length of the skiing season.

Title: Characteristics and description of cross-country skiing resorts in the Czech Republic Aim: The aim of this work is to look for cross-country ski resorts in the Czech republic which are suitable for cross-country trainings and competitions of various categories. The extension of this work is the creation of a written and electronic list featuring these areas and including a brief description of their background. The electronic version of the overview of the cross-country resorts, mentioned in this work would be/will be/is posted on the internet for the needs of the ski clubs and cross-country skiing lovers. Methods: The basis of this work is data collection performed by analysis of documents referred to in the literature and on websites. A large amount of the information was provided by the skiers, administrators of sites and their operators. Another method used in this work to determine the actual technical details, especially concerning the individual ski resorts and cross-country skiing routes, was the survey. Given the low responding rate, and because of a very narrow range of questions asked, it was not appropriate to use a method of data collection by questionnaire. Results: Assessment of individual sites based on the offered training opportunities and organization of competitions for...