Adapting to climate change: the case of snow-based tourism in Afriski, Lesotho

ABSTRACT

Climate change poses significant challenges to the tourism sector, with snow-based tourism particularly threatened. Snow-based tourism is largely dependent on adaptation, including snowmaking practices and product diversification. In the global south, the limited snow-based tourism products face similar challenges to the global north, but with significantly higher vulnerability and lower adaptive capacity. By making use of a questionnaire survey and personal in-depth interviews this paper examines adaptation mechanisms and the perceptions held by tourists and managers at Afriski, Lesotho. While Afriski already implements adaptive mechanisms, considering the current global environmental change projections for southern Africa, greater adaptive action is necessary.

KEYWORDS:

• Snow-based tourism
• climate change
• Lesotho
• adaptation
• snowmaking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by University of Johannesburg;DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Palaeoscience;

Notes on contributors

Gijsbert Hoogendoorn

Prof Gijsbert Hoogendoorn is an Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He is a tourism geographer, who has worked on second homes, tourism and climate change, and last chance tourism.

Lara Stockigt

Ms Lara Stockigt is a Lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. She conducted her masters on climate change threats to Ski tourism in Lesotho.

Jarkko Saarinen

Prof Jarkko Saarinen is a Professor at the University of Oulu with a focus on tourism and sustainability, including tourism and climate change.

Jennifer M. Fitchett

Prof Jennifer Fitchett is an Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a biometeorologist exploring climate change impacts on plants, animals and people.