JOST No: 550 376 Climate Change and the Sustainability of Ski-based Tourism in Eastern North America: A Reassessment Daniel Scott, Geoff McBoyle and Alanna Minogue Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada Brian Mills Adaptation and Impacts Research Group, Meteorological Service of Canada, at the University of Waterloo, Canada The sustainability of skiing tourism has been repeatedly identified as vulnerable to global climate change. Earlier research, however, did not fully consider snowmaking as an adaptation strategy, which is integral to the ski industry in eastern North America. This study examines how it reduces the vulnerability of ski areas to climate change in six study areas by developing a model to assess the impact of climate change on season length, probability of operations during critical tourism periods, snowmaking costs, and water requirements. It suggests that in the 2020s, even the warmest climate change scenario poses only a minor risk to four of the six ski areas. The reassessment for the 2050s period found that only the warmest scenario would jeopardise the sustainability of three of the ski areas examined. The confluence of climatic changes and other non- climate business factors will advantage certain ski areas and likely result in further contraction and consolidation in this regional ski market. doi:10.2167/jost550.0 Keywords: Canada, climate change, skiing, United States, winter tourism Introduction Weather and climate strongly inluence tourism and recreation activities through- out the world. For more than 20 years, researchers have examined the potential implications of climate change for this sector (Scott et al., 2005). Wall (1992), Perry (2000), Agnew and Viner (2001), and Scott (2006) provide recent overviews of the potential implications of global climate change for the tourism sector in various regions of the world. Together with Butler and Jones (2001), World Tourism Organ- isation [WTO] (2003) and Gösling and Hall (2006), these authors have expressed concern that our understanding of the potentially profound impacts of global climate change on this important economic sector remains very limited. The winter tourism industry, in particular alpine skiing, has been repeatedly identiied as potentially vulnerable to climate change (Abegg et al., 1998; Wall, 1992; WTO, 2003) and has received greater attention from researchers. König and Abegg (1997) and Elsasser and Bürki (2002) indicated that the Swiss tourism industry has not fully recovered from low snowfall years during the late 1980s and 0966-9582/06/04 0376-20 $20.00/0 © 2006 D. Scott et al. JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM Vol. 14, No. 4, 2006 jost14-4.indb 376 22/06/2006 10:21:12