The responsibility of winter sports resorts in the global spread of COVID-19
Résumé
On September 17, 2021 was held in Vienna, the first trial against the Austrian authorities, following
the death of an old man that could have been infected by Covid-19 in Ischgl (Tyrol, Austrian Alps).
Other lawsuits are expected to follow since around thirty people who stayed in the Austrian ski resort
have died from Covid-19 and collective action has been initiated by more than 6,000 people from
around fifty countries all around the world. Ischgl has become the symbol of a global cluster linked to
tourism, and even an umbrella term for the risk associated with massive and festive gatherings.
However, Ischgl, stigmatized, caricatured and over-publicized, isn’t it a very useful scapegoat to avoid
asking the question of the responsibility of increasingly globalized winter tourism in the spread of
Covid-19 at the begining of the pandemic? By publishing on December 15, 2020 a long investigation
into the covid-19 pandemic in the prestigious ski resort of Courchevel, Le Monde newspapers had put
the cat among the pigeons by relocating the subject in the French Alps, while the debate was raging
on the question of whether or not ski areas would open during the Christmas holidays. In this very
tense context, the reactions had been sharp but contrasted. However, the information contained in
this article did not come as a surprise: yes, winter tourism played a significant role in the spread of the
pandemic during the first wave. Courchevel, like Ischgl, butl also like Val Gardena (Italy), Verbier
(Switzerland), Aspen and Sun Valley (USA), etc. constitute very interesting case study, not because of
their exceptional nature but because, on the contrary, they are representative of a situation which
concerned most of the ski areas in the world, in Europe, in North America, in Australia, etc. Everywhere,
the media coverage was substantial except perhaps in France: much has been said about Ischgl in
Austria, but the article in Le Monde about Courchevel was published 6 months after the fact and, above
all, after the government announced that the ski lifts would remain closed until January. However, this
decision taken on a European scale is based less, in particular for Germany and Italy, on a precautionary
principle than on experience feedback relating to the events that occurred during the first wave and
of which we perhaps did not speak enough in France, unlike neighboring countries. Our objective is
not to discuss whether or not closing the ski lifts but to reviewing the facts that may have led to these
political decisions and to understand their consequences on the spatial level. By jointly analyzing
temporalities and spatialities, we will question the role of winter sports resorts, in order to reconstruct
the geohistorical trajectory of the diffusion of covid-19 in the world from ski resorts and to analyze its
consequences at different scales. Several key geography themes will be mobilized for this:
globalization, flows and mobility, borders, risks, inequalities and representations associating, in the
collective imagination, mountains, empty space, clean air and security.