The Winter Olympics and Winter Tourism in a Changing World
The modern Olympic movement is founded on a vision of building a better world through sport. However, as the Games have grown in size and grandeur, their success has been accompanied by unintended social, economic, and environmental consequences for host cities, regions and countries, as well as entangled in the complex politics, scandals, and social movements of its global participants. The growing major social and economic challenges facing the Olympics (costs and overspending, governance and corruption, public opposition and fewer willing hosts, human rights, equity and inclusivity, have intensified speculation about its future and the need for transformative reform of the Olympics as we know it. The need for such change and reform is only exacerbated by the concern over sustainability and climate change that is especially highlighted in the hosting of Winter Olympic Games that and is reflective of the many of the growing environmental concerns surrounding winter tourism because of the climate crisis.
As the largest multisport event in the world, with multi-billion-dollar development, business, and tourism operations, and a global audience exceeding 4.5 billion people, the Olympics have attracted growing scholarly attention from a wide range of disciplines. Tourism scholars have made important contributions on the economic impacts and sustainability of Olympic mega-events, tourism and community development conflicts, host and non-host experiences, destination image and marketing, the legacy of the games for tourism development, and the wider links to winter tourism. This article collection showcases the various contributions on the Winter Olympics and winter tourism showcases the contributions in Current Issues in Tourism, including the many closely aligned methodological, contextual, and theoretical publications that have informed the papers specific to the Games as well as well as broader research on winter tourism in a changing world.