The Operational and Regional Vulnerability of Winter Tourism to Climate Variability and Change: The Case of the Finnish Nature-Based Tourism Entrepreneurs

The climatic vulnerability of winter tourism activities other than downhill skiing or snowmobiling has remained unstudied even though winter tourism has lately received plenty of attention in relation to climate change. As winter tourism entrepreneurs operate in diverse environments and have diverse customer groups, the sector cannot be considered as one homogenous group. Special attention should be directed to individual activities, especially in the context of the Nordic countries where importance of downhill skiing is relatively low. In this article, the sensitivity of winter tourism activities to climatic events is assessed in a Finnish context using questionnaire data gathered from winter tourism entrepreneurs operating in Finland. According to results, the vulnerability of winter tourism to climate depends both on the activity and on the region where activities are produced. About three-quarters of winter tourism enterprises are affected by weather events such as high or extremely low temperatures or high wind that cause cancellations. Climate change in Finland is not predicted to shorten the length of the snow season below the critical length as expressed by the entrepreneurs. Considering this, the future of winter tourism in Finland and similar areas may be more sensitive to the changes in the frequency and severity of weather extremes than to the changes in the season lengths.