L’innovation au cœur de la diversification touristique des stations de montagne ?

• Main Authors: Marc Langenbach, Émilie Jaccard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Éditions Touristiques Européennes 2019-06-01
• Series: Mondes du Tourisme
• Subjects: tourism; innovation; sports equipment; mountain resort; networks; Switzerland
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/tourisme/1936

The context of strong evolution and uncertainties that affects mountain resorts, in terms of climate, tourist and sports demand, or competition between resorts, leads them to lean more and more on innovation to renew their development trajectory. In this context, mountain resorts’ public and private actors design and use sports innovations (in terms of techniques, know-how or social organization) by integrating them into new strategies for diversifying tourism. More specifically, the objective pursued in this article aims on the one hand to understand the emergence of trail running infrastructures, as an innovation, in Swiss tourist territories, and on the other hand to discuss the innovative role, or not, of such infrastructures in the process of diversification of mountain tourism.