Finnish snowboarders' perceptions of climate change and responsible travel

The winter temperatures in northern regions will likely be affected the most by climate change. As climate change already affects winters in Finland, many Finnish snowboarders choose to travel elsewhere to find better winter conditions. The purpose of this research is to identify the mind-sets of the snowboarders towards climate change and responsible travel. The main research question was: how do Finnish snowboarders perceive climate change in relation to snowboard travel? And the sub-questions were: How are Finnish snowboarders choosing the destination when planning a trip? How do the snowboarders travel to and within the destination? And, on what basis are snowboarders choosing the accommodation services they will use? Snowboard culture has always been different from skiing, as snowboarders were banned from most ski resorts until mid-1980s. Even nowadays most snowboarders consider themselves different from skiers. Snowboarders can be divided into different sub-groups, but this research examines closer only freestyle, freeride and slope snowboarders. The commissioning party of this thesis is Protect Our Winters (POW) Finland. The organizations’ purpose is to encourage people from winter sport community to make daily decisions affecting climate change as well as influencing society more broadly. Climate change has various impacts on tourism, it influences environmental conditions that attract and deter tourists. Polar region, North Europe and North America are projected to warm the most during winter, and ski destinations around the world are impacted by these changes. This research was conducted by Internet based questionnaire. The survey was made with Webropol and the target group was all Finnish snowboarders and the questionnaire was distributed through different social media channels. The results of the survey were analysed by quantitative approach. The responses of the survey answered to the research questions. The results show that Finnish snowboarders seem to know relatively well of the impacts of individual factors of tourism on climate change. Although their travel decisions are mainly influenced by the snow conditions, places of performance, off-piste possibilities and budget. Most snowboarders are not considering ecology when planning a snowboard trip. Some of the respondents had not even realised the impacts of their own actions with snowboard travel. For future suggestions, POW Finland could create a campaign with different operators from ski industry to promote and market sustainable travel options for snowboarders and skiers. Also winter travel companies should implement more sustainable actions to their operations