Mountain sports tourism as an ecosystem market

ABSTRACT

Mountain sports tourism literature shows a lack of conceptualisation probably due to its own particular character. Indeed, it is a complex market consisting of several products, services and actors from different natures. This paper examines how, on the one hand, the ecosystem approach, and on the other hand, the socioeconomic co-evolution of sport and tourism can help to understand the mountain sports tourism. The paper hypothesis argues that actors’ interactions, and sport and tourism economic models’ convergence have contributed to shape this market. The ecosystem’s actors have mobilised resources and strategies in order to incorporate sport and tourism industries to establish and to develop a specific market in mountainous areas. The French case study shows how entrepreneurs, local authorities, consumers, institutions, etc. seized the opportunity offered by the development of the society of leisure to constitute a socioeconomic community based on mountain sports tourism in the sense of James Moore [(1993). Predator and prey: Anew ecology of competition. Harvard Business Review, (May–June), 73–86; (1996). Business ecosystem and the view from the firm. Antitrust Bulletin, 51(1), 31–75].

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem market
• sports tourism
• co-evolution
• socioeconomic community
• economic models

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ‘Plan neige' (1964–1977) referred to several public policies for the development of French mountains with the aim of encouraging mass winter tourism through huge ski resorts network implementation.

2 James Moore (1996) ecosystems theory considers the co-evolution as a fundamental concept in studies complex adaptive markets.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Labex Ittem – Université de Grenoble Alpes: [Grant Number This work was carried out thanks to the financial].