The Capacity of Locally Bound Tourism Firms to Respond to Climate Variability and Long-Term Change: Qualitative Case Studies on Organizational Learning in the Austrian Winter Tourism Sector

Abstract

The growing knowledge on business options in the Alpine winter tourism sector to respond to the impacts of climate change is not matched by a sufficient understanding of the required capacity of business organizations to consider, plan and implement these options. The business management perspective of organizational learning allows us to look under the surface of a business organization in order to understand the driving and inhibiting processes that constitute the capacity of tourism firms to effectively respond to climate change. Based on qualitative interviews with organizational managers in the Austrian Alpine winter tourism sector, 20 organizational case studies provide reconstructions of subjective viewpoints on climate variability and long-term trends. Quality of climate information management and integrating local climate experiences with external evidence—particularly from the mass media—have been found to be important processes which drive the motivation to respond. Active experimentation with alternative tourism products and consideration of climate change-independent co-benefits of response measures lowers the barrier to adapt business strategies to climate change. Given the strong economic interdependence of locally bound Alpine tourism businesses, the development of a joint climate information management, led by stronger local players such as cable car operators, are conceived as starting points to build up the overall local capacity of response.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Martina Linnenluecke (University of Queensland) for inspiring discussions about organizational resilience, Herbert Formayer (BOKU University) for his support in accessing and selecting climate data as well as Adam Pawloff (BOKU University) for his editorial support. The fruitful comments of two anonymous reviewers, that greatly helped to improve the manuscript, are also acknowledged.

This paper has been prepared in the framework of the Doctoral School Sustainable Development (DOKNE) at BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, funded by the Austrian Sustainability Research Program provision of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research as well as by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) and the Federal States of Lower Austria, Styria, and Vienna.

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