Worldwide, many mountainous regions rely on tourism for income but are simultaneously especially vulnerable to changes in forest ecosystem services and climate change. In our study, we use the Stubai Valley in Austria as a case study to assess how a summer mountain tourism system reacts to those changes. Whilst the impacts of climate change on winter mountain tourism is well understood, the summer side of things is far more complex and ambiguous. We focus on mountain forests and how tourists perceive and understand this ecosystem change as well as the services it provides.
We conducted an in-situ, in-person survey at multiple locations in the valley to understand tourists’ thresholds of acceptable change and their valuation of mountain forest ecosystem services. Expert interviews with retired stakeholders from the tourism system complement the survey with a local and historical perspective on tourism’s adaptions to ecosystem and climatic developments. We found that tourists ranked forests as the second most important feature in mountain landscapes of the options given, surpassed only by high mountain landscapes. Within forests, tourists most frequently perceived aesthetic services, and indicated that they were willing to pay an additional 5€/person/night (median) to protect forests.
Regarding heat thresholds, we found that the majority of people will no longer visit the Stubai if temperatures in the valley reach above 30°C. Additionally, tourists were sensitive to forest loss with 75% of visitors stating that they would no longer choose the Stubai for their holiday if 50 per cent of the forest area was lost. We use local stakeholder perspectives to complement the findings from our tourist survey.