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Oh...!
… the new silver bullet aimed at reviving the ailing winter tourism sector comes in the form of so-called "Downhill Bubbles".
News
"Landscape is not renewable"
Must the Alps really be squeezed to the last drop so they can contribute yet more to the energy transition? The CIPRA annual conference on "The Alps as a Water Trough" saw more passionate debate on this topic than any other.
News
Green winter sports
Ski areas are constructing climate-friendly lift facilities and France has now introduced a new law that obliges lift operators to provide information on CO2 consumption. A report on how ski areas are attempting to be environmentally friendly.
News
Winter Olympics in Munich 2022? No comment
In just two months the citizens of several Bavarian municipalities will be deciding on their candidacy for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, four days before the official deadline for applications. People seem reluctant to discuss the candidacy openly - does anyone actually want the Winter Olympics?
News
Upgrading the high mountains
Austria's highest suspension bridge, including the "Steps into the Void", is intended to lure tourists to the Dachstein Glacier in a similar way to the recently opened "Du Gouter" luxury hut for walkers on Mont Blanc. The ways in which the Alpine mountain world courts visitors.
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Oh...!
… The Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) is this year celebrating its 150th anniversary and has got Mother Nature to build it a table of snow and ice at an altitude of 2,700 metres.
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Energy efficiency in ski resorts!
How to reduce energy consumption and green house gases (GHG) emissions in ski resorts? A pilot action in the Pays Serre-Ponçon Ubaye Durance (Pays SUD, France).
News
Like growing bananas on Piz Palü
It is important to keep your feet on the ground. That is the reason why CIPRA members held a cross-border trek along the Alpine chain – as a network-building project and a kind of Long March, which also made tracks on Facebook.
News
CIPRA's point of view: The Alps are far too valuable for the Olympics
The result of the vote held on 3 March 2013 in Graubünden is clear: 52.7% are against the Winter Olympics being held there in 2022. This example shows that there is no desire for gigantism in the Alps.
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...Oh!
… The skiers must be able to swish over gleaming white snow, the ice skaters must glide across brilliant white ice and the biathletes shoot through deep white snow drifts. The Winter Olympic Games in Switzerland must be absolutely snow-white.
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Next generation to bear risk of Winter Olympics
The Swiss canton of Graubünden wants to hold a "sustainable" Winter Olympics in 2022. While the many open questions regarding the candidacy have stirred passions in Switzerland, Munich's candidacy is not quite so controversial. But time is pressing.
News
An Alpine "arms race": the desire for fun and games
Europe's highest suspension bridge is being opened in Switzerland, while an Austrian peak is getting a four-armed cross that is accessible to visitors - unbelievable adventures in the Alps.
News
Olympic candidacy - a questionable venture?
Forecasts estimate that the 2022 Winter Olympics in Switzerland will cost 4.5 billion Swiss francs - or, as experience shows, even more. Is it worth it? In March 2013 the citizens of Graubünden will go to the polls to decide.
News
CIPRA's point of view: Torino 2006: a hard lesson - but nothing learned
The Olympic Winter Games 2006 have left a burdensome legacy. The idea is thus to close the loss-making bobsleigh and replace it with an indoor ski slope. Is Turin simply throwing good money after bad?
News
Winter tourism: lateral thinking in Savoy
The skiing area of Biot/F sees ever less snow, and the resort is deep in debt. The local mayor now wants to get rid of the lifts and develop other forms of tourism. A visionary decision in the western Alps.
News
Swiss want to see fewer second homes
Most Swiss people have approved the "Stop the never-ending building of second homes" initiative, providing mountain communities with more protection for landscapes. But the building moratorium is not universally popular.
News
CIPRA receives the Dutch Sustainability Award
In an on-line ballot, Dutch mountaineers voted CIPRA the 2012 Sustainability Organisation of the Year. This is the first time the Sustainability Award has been made by the Royal Dutch Mountaineering and Climbing Club.
Press/Media release
The spectacle of a new Mont Blanc cable car
Ground-breaking ceremony for Courmayeur/I's new cable car up to the Pointe Helbronner: Over a four-year construction period the glass and steel colossus, which is set to cost over EUR 100 million, is to replace the installation built in the 1940s and 1950s - and showcase the Mont Blanc even more magnificently.
News
Only climate-friendly tourism is sustainable: cc.alps - CIPRA’s demands for tourism in climate change
Climate change is a major challenge to Alpine tourism. It has to adapt to climate change and at the same time become more climate-friendly. There is a particularly large potential for reduction of CO2 emissions in the key areas of traffic and energy. Tourism is a branch of the economy which is heavily subsidized. Therefore public policy can and must direct developments towards sustainability through the support given to tourism. The present discussion about developments in the tourism industry is dominated by the large chair lift companies which are essentially fixed on ski tourism and the maintenance of the status quo. But focusing only on snow and skiing means promoting a capital-intensive, highly technological form of Alpine tourism and a monoculture. This is neither climatologically nor environmentally sustainable.
Position
Olympic bid by Annecy: repercussions underestimated
French environmental protection agencies have said that the "impact of the Olympic Games on the environment are widely underestimated in the application documents".
News
Olympic Games: no benefit to the national economy
Switzerland is once again discussing its candidacy for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Environmental organisations are warning against the ecological and economic repercussions. Even Marco Blatter, former CEO of Swiss Olympic, has been quoted on Swiss radio, saying that he was glad the 2006 Games were not held in the Valais. He added that in Turin/I the Games had grown out of all proportion. "With all the infrastructure investments Turin cost around CHF 4.5 bn; Vancouver is costing around CHF 6 bn; and Sochi 2014 is officially budgeting for CHF 13 bn," reports Switzerland's SonntagsZeitung.
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The shreds of Turin
Mountain regions are footing the bill for the Winter Olympics - the Winter Olympics bring fame and glory and an economic revival to the regions. For a fortnight. Leaving behind an oversized infrastructure, debts and empty beds. That, in a nutshell, is Turin four years after the 20th Olympic Winter Games.
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An Alpine Museum for Slovenia
In early August more than 1'000 mountaineers and mountain enthusiasts attended the opening of the Slovenian Alpine Museum (Slovenski planinski muzej - SPM) in Mojstrana/SI. The multitude of guests who attended underlines just how strong the demand is for such an institution in the Slovenian Alps. Slovenia owes its Alpine Museum first and foremost to Miro Eržen, who fought for the project for 25 years. The new Museum was officially inaugurated by the President of Slovenia Danilo Türk.
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Per Alpes - Discovering the Alps in 20 circular walks
Such is the title of the hiking guide that has just been published by the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention. It showcases and describes 20 selected trekking routes across the alpine arc, touching on all the alpine states that are part of the Alpine Convention. By presenting the Alps as a tourist destination that goes beyond the national borders of the individual countries this book contributes in its way towards implementing the Alpine Convention's protocol on tourism.
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Leisure: car-free mobility
Leisure activities that do not involve the use of cars are now "in", as the increasing number of information packs clearly shows. The Alpine Club South Tyrol (AVS) for instance recently published five new brochures, each featuring 15 to 20 hiking routes whose starting and finishing points can all be reached by public transport. In the series Hiking Without Cars the Alpine Club has compiled a total of some 300 hiking tips for the whole of South Tyrol. As the AVS remarks in a press release, "It should be a priority for tourist regions to adopt measures that promote the use of public transport for travel both to and from destinations as well as for activities at the holiday destination itself".
News
Uphill with solar energy
The village of Tenna in the Safien valley of the Swiss canton Graubünden is working hard on a world premiere. The Skilift Tenna cooperative has decided to replace an ancient ski lift by the first solar-powered ski lift ever.
News
Austria: pressure caused by exploitation rose at the highest altitudes
All across Austria the tendency to build cableways and other skiing infrastructures inside the boundaries of protected areas and other high-value zones can be observed. The Austrian Alpine Club (OeAV) warns against the destruction of landscape and recreational resources in the Alps and demands a framework for a well-balanced territorial planning, in order to preserve the typical Alpine landscape.
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The upgrading of Alpine winter sports
The Dossier is dedicated to the topic of "The upgrading of Alpine winter sports". The background report describes the latest trends in winter sports in the Alps as well as their economic impact. The catchwords include "fun tourism", increased capacities, artificial snow and new developments. One important conclusion: at a time when the number of skiers is decreasing and global warming is increasing, the Alpine tourist resorts which will survive and succeed in preserving their autonomy are those which see nature and the landscape as their most precious asset and which come up with alternatives to one-sided ski tourism. Additional relevant material on the issue can be found in other language versions of this page.
Dossier
Eco-tourism in the Alps
In the Alps there are already many forms of nature-orientated tourism, which, in some of its fundamental objectives, is very much like eco-tourism. While nature-orientated tourism in the Alps has a great deal of potential when it comes to value added and niche appeal, it does not have the growth potential attributed to global eco-tourism. There are, however, signs that nature-orientated tourism will gain in significance in the Alps in the years to come. Current discussions on eco-tourism can provide the impetus for those responsible for tourism policy to give more thought to an overall strategy for nature-orientated tourism in the Alps, together with the key players operating at the grass-roots level. Additional relevant material on the issue can be found in other language versions of this page.
Dossier
Low-carbon travel from the UK to the ski slopes
Taking the train from London to go skiing in Sestriere/I sounds like a nightmare scenario. But, as a new specialist website proves, it's not. For a number of weeks now, avid skiers can go to www.snowcarbon.co.uk/ (en) to find the most convenient train journeys to take them from London/UK to the Alps or the Pyrenees to go skiing.