4th Sport Tourism Conference (STC) 2017 Grenoble – Challenges of Socio-economic, Climatic and Technological Changes

Sport tourism and moun­tain­ous areas are fac­ing major changes in a glob­al­ized world, where cli­mate change and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies growth, require from its play­ers to take on new chal­lenges. Depend­ing on the stakeholder’s respon­sive­ness, the soci­etal, eco­nomic, cul­tural and tech­no­log­i­cal changes we can observe in the Alpine region and in other extra-​continental moun­tains regions may be con­sid­ered as con­se­quences or adap­ta­tions. Sport and moun­tain tourism, which rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nomic and social weight, are no excep­tion to this trend and call adap­tive and inno­v­a­tive responses. Com­pa­nies, resorts, sports­men, con­sumers, insti­tu­tions and ter­ri­to­ries (in the sense of tourist des­ti­na­tions open to the world) should find solu­tions through indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive inno­va­tion. They have to adapt their strate­gies, orga­ni­za­tions and gov­er­nance mod­els to remain com­pet­i­tive and attrac­tive. Oth­er­wise, the risk relat­ing to these major changes and their social con­se­quences (inse­cu­rity, inequal­ity, loss of employ­ment, etc.) become larger and menacing.

The adap­ta­tion to changes raises ques­tions relat­ing to spe­cific char­ac­ter­is­tics of sport tourism and moun­tain­ous areas as recom­po­si­tion of ter­ri­to­ries and eco­nomic or pro­fes­sional activ­i­ties; the dynamic of the actors (com­pa­nies, con­sumers, and insti­tu­tions), soci­ety evo­lu­tion; the role and types of inno­va­tion, and the way researchers approach these inter­ro­ga­tions. Indeed, in this new con­text, ques­tion­ing the prac­tices of sci­en­tific research and the revival of the­o­ret­i­cal approaches appears to be an impor­tant point to be developed.

In this con­text of major changes, we also need to con­sider the new needs of soci­eties, indi­vid­u­als, busi­nesses and insti­tu­tions. The mat­ter of the evo­lu­tion of sports tourism mar­kets in moun­tain areas, in the socio-​economic and geopo­lit­i­cal sense, deserves to be debated, even enlight­ened on this occa­sion. Indeed, it should exam­ine the fac­tors and mod­els of com­pe­ti­tion between ter­ri­to­ries, des­ti­na­tions, Euro­pean and inter­na­tional regions not only in eco­nomic terms (quan­tity and price…), but also in soci­o­log­i­cal terms (social logic of actors and orga­ni­za­tions…), mar­ket­ing (attrac­tive­ness of des­ti­na­tions…), his­tor­i­cal (dynamic of occu­pa­tions and skills…), geo­graphic (ter­ri­to­r­ial recom­po­si­tion…), geopo­lit­i­cal (impact of con­flicts…), tech­nol­ogy (mas­tery of dig­i­tal…), etc.

Set­ting out from this, the call for papers is open to all dis­ci­plines and researchers that may con­tribute to fur­ther enlighten the gen­eral theme of change in sport tourism in moun­tains areas. The mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­pos­als, com­bin­ing the­o­ret­i­cal view­points and inno­v­a­tive method­olog­i­cal approaches aris­ing from the inter­ac­tion between social sci­ences and human­i­ties or between the lat­ter and other sci­ences (e g. envi­ron­men­tal, infor­ma­tion, etc.) will have a par­tic­u­lar attention.

• Inno­va­tion in the ecosys­tem of the sport tourism and moun­tain tourism
• New strate­gies for liv­ing in moun­tain areas and from trades of sport tourism
• New busi­ness mod­els, new pat­terns of pro­duc­tion and new mar­ket­ing strategies
• New occu­pa­tions and new skills in sports tourism and espe­cially in moun­tain sport tourism
• New dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in sports tourism and moun­tain tourism and espe­cially in moun­tain sport tourism
• Entre­pre­neur­ship, entre­pre­neurs and enter­prises in sport tourism and espe­cially in moun­tain sport tourism
• Mod­els of gov­er­nance of tourist des­ti­na­tions, the new lever­age for action of polit­i­cal or sport­ing institutions

• Con­sumers (Tourists and sports­men), new behav­iors, new forms of prac­tic­ing and consumption
• Women as entre­pre­neurs or con­sumers deal­ing with changes
• Impor­tance of sum­mer and/​or win­ter sport tourism for the devel­op­ment of moun­tain destination
• Sus­tain­able devel­op­ment mod­els in sports tourism and for the high and medium mountain
• Role of sports tourism events and facil­i­ties in the devel­op­ment of tourist destinations
• Com­par­a­tive stud­ies between moun­tains of Europe and extra continental
• Other themes

• Malek Bouhaouala (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes)
• Michel Ras­paud (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes)
• Anne Dal­masso (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes)

• Clé­mence Per­rin (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc)
• Christophe Gau­chon (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc)
• Dominique Kréziak (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc)

• Malek Bouhaouala (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes-​France)

• Claude Sobry (Uni­ver­sité Lille 2-​IRNIST-​France)

• Allan Williams (Uni­ver­sity of Surrey-​UK)
• Anne Dal­masso (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes-​France)
• Brahim Allaoui (Insti­tut Royal de For­ma­tion des Cadres de la Jeunesse et des Sports-​Maroc)
• Bruno Sar­rasin, (Uni­ver­sité du Québec à Montréal-​Canada)
• Christophe Gau­chon (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc-​France)
• Christophe Gibout (Uni­ver­sité du Lit­toral Côte d’Opale-France)
• Clé­mence Per­rin (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc-​France)
• Derek Van Rhee­nen (Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Berkeley)
• Dieter Hillairet (Uni­ver­sité Cler­mont Auvergne-​France)
• Dominique Kréziak (Uni­ver­sité Savoie Mont Blanc-​France)
• Fanny Dubois (Uni­ver­sité Toulouse 3-​France)
• Jean Har­vey (Uni­ver­sité d’Ottawa-Canada)
• John Saun­ders (Aus­tralian Catholic University-​Autralia)
• Kather­ine Dash­per (Leeds Metropoltain University)

• Kristina Bucar (Uni­ver­sity of Zagreb-​Croatia)
• Michel Ras­paud (Uni­ver­sité Greno­ble Alpes-​France)
• Mike Weed, (Can­ter­bury Christ Church University-​UK)
• Mohamed Kaach (Insti­tut Royal de For­ma­tion des Cadres de la Jeunesse et des Sports-​Maroc)
• Mohammed Mat­mati (Greno­ble Ecole de Management-​France)
• Pas­cale Mar­cotte (Uni­ver­sité Laval-​Canada)
• Patrick Bouchet (Uni­ver­sité de Bourgogne-​France)
• Ricardo Mélo (Uni­ver­sité de Coimbra-​Portugal)
• Sanela Sko­ric (Uni­ver­sity of Zagreb-​Croatia)
• Shawn M. O’Rourke (Can­i­sius Colleges-​USA)
• Sorina Cer­na­ianu (Uni­ver­sité de Craiova-​Romania)
• Vin­cent Mange­matin (Greno­ble Ecole de Management-​France)
• Yann Abdouraza­kou (Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Dominguez Hills-​USA)