Climate change rears its ugly head once again to complicate insurance matters—insurers who offer event liability insurance on winter sport events, be warned.
Alberta’s uncharacteristic warmer temperatures have forced the cancellation of the World Cup downhill races at Lake Louise, Alta, which were scheduled for later this month.
It is the first time in 29 years that the International Ski Federation had called off a World Cup event at Lake Louise.
“We’re crushed by having to make the decision, we worked very hard with the resort staff and our volunteers to get the racetrack prepared,” race chairman Brian Lynam told
CBC News. “But weather worked against us. It was just too warm to make the amount of snow that we needed on the lower part of the mountain. But we’ve got plans, obviously to push forward because we have ladies races to hold coming up.
“Basically half of the race course is covered with excellent coverage of snow that will be race-ready, it’s just the lower half of the racetrack that we’re having some problems getting good coverage,” Lynam added. “Mother nature is someone to be respected.”
Although Lynam confirmed that there was insurance in place in the event of such cancellations, he stressed that a lot of hard work went to waste.
“Our annual budget is in the order of about $4 million so it is a significant event,” he said. “We have to build our track basically from nothing each time so there is significant energy put into the event.”
Simon Hudson, a director at the University of South Carolina’s Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development, thinks that the ski resorts have to diversify as early as now before climate change completely runs them out of business.
“I think resorts will wake up and realize they have to adapt and diversify,” Hudson said. “And you know skiing… by 2050 will be a niche product for the well-off, but I think we’re OK certainly for the next 10, 20 years.”
Hudson noted that in the past, scientists were in disagreement over the impact of climate change on ski tourism.
“When I started looking at this years ago, the scientists, some were saying ‘Oh there’s going to be no impact,’ some said ‘Oh yes there is’,” he explained.
“Now they all agree that climate change is going to have an impact on the ski business. And the seasons are shorter at this time of year and temperatures could rise more than 10 degrees by 2050.”
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