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.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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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.