Markus Redl Book Presentation: “The Future Of Ski Areas: The White Gold Is Turning Green!”

Markus Redl, long-time author of the TP blog and expert in the transformation of ski areas into year-round mountain adventure centers, publishes a non-fiction book at story.one

The future of the ski areas: in a country like Austria characterized by mountains, it is of utmost importance not only economically, but also in terms of lifestyle!
For Markus Redl, writing about how snow sports can be further developed, what makes year-round mountain experiences attractive, and how transformation can succeed in alpine tourism is more of a calling than a job. The trained sports scientist, state-certified ski instructor and Harvard graduate Redl (50) has been managing director of the state-owned mountain railways in Lower Austria - which are combined in ecoplus Alpin GmbH - since 2011.

In this role, the aim was to transform ski areas into year-round mountain adventure centers, making clever use of the special conditions of the respective location. Because the business model of a rather short, intensive ski season has definitely had its day - and not just in the foothills of the Alps. What is more important is to offer both excursion and overnight guests attractive experiences on the mountain all year round.
Since 2016, Redl has reflected on his professional practice on the APA-Comm tourism press blog. A selection of articles from the last few months was supplemented for the book published by story.one with practical examples of successful transformation - such as that at the Wexl Arena in St. Corona am Wechsel or the digitalization offensive that emerged from pandemic management.

Nine future images illustrated by Robert Six - three each from 2020, 2030 and 2040 - show what strategic decisions need to be made around the snow sports offerings of destinations and how the infrastructure and culture of alpine sports can be further developed.

For Judith Grass, managing director of Erlebnisberg Golm in Montafon, ... the images of the future give an outlook on what is possible. Practical examples from St. Corona am Wechsel and Annaberg illustrate how innovative ideas are already being successfully implemented today. For me it is an absolute must read for anyone who wants to actively shape the future of Alpine tourism.

The German landscape architect Andreas Kipar, founder and CEO of the international office LAND with headquarters in Milan, writes: White gold or green gold? This is the question not only in Alpine tourism... A big topic, well summarized in a small book.

Peter Haimayer, tourism consultant and also author of the TP blog, comments: It's great that the time has come! Somehow I was waiting for Markus Redl to publish his numerous well-founded and mostly quite detailed blog posts in book form and thus make them available to a wide range of interested parties.

Based on a lot of practical experience and extensive research, his contributions address a broad cross-section of winter tourism and cable car-related topics. In addition, as is known from the TP blog, they provide valuable information on further studies and instructive examples in other regions, such as North America.

In an article by Markus Redl on the tourism press blog, Wolfgang Egger, long-time board member of Gasteiner Bergbahnen AG, comments: Austria's grounded cable car operators are more concerned with the future than many people believe. This requires out-of-the-box thinkers who look outside the box, think and pass on their thoughts. Even if you sometimes don't like these lateral thinkers, you need them. Because they also say what is uncomfortable because their ideas often do not fit into the current concept.