Impacts and Risks of Global Change - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 54

drinks, food, etc.)—fi rstly by the young people—may lead to tensions and
frustrations. This phase is followed by identifi cation, which means the
complete takeover of the foreign value systems and a weakening of the
local culture. The last step is the acculturation to the dominant western
civilization. This may be observed by a commercialization of local customs
and hospitality.
Globalization has so far an enormous impact on mountain tourism
all over the world, as travelling became easier (travel facilities, cheap air
fares, increase of mobility). With globalization even the kinds of tourists
changed from mountaineers and spa-tourists to hikers, sportsmen, skiers
and young backpackers.
The Alps are among the earliest tourist destinations and from the
beginning the focus has been on the landscape. With the advent of mass
tourism in the 1960s, tourism and the leisure industry have become a major
economic factor in the rural areas of the Alps (12% of jobs, 16% of GDP),
albeit with great differences between regions and municipalities (Bätzing
2003). Within the last 30 years, a long-term trend towards skiing-based
winter tourism has emerged for large parts of the Alps, with signifi cantly
higher added value than summer tourism. This development goes hand
in hand with a knock-out competition between tourist destinations. Only
municipalities that invest continuously in their tourism portfolio will be
able to achieve growth in the future (Fig. 3.10).
Figure 3.10. Increasing concentration of tourism in Austria (Lorenz Curve): GVL stands for
the hypothesis that pernoctations are equally distributed to the municipalities. The distance
to GVL demonstrates the concentration of tourism on some municipalities. © O: Bender 2011.
Color image of this figure appears in the color plate section at the end of the topic.