PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Environment, Politics and Society
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2025.1520622
This article is part of the Research TopicTourism and Outdoor Recreation in a Melting WorldView all 6 articles
A South-North research agenda for cryotourism in a warming world
Provisionally accepted
Pamela Bachmann-Vargas1*
Osman Cenk Demiroglu1
Sebastián Ruiz_Pereira2,3
Dorothee Bohn1,4
Marisol Vereda5
Trace Gale6,7Jose Barrena8- 1Department of Geography, Umeå University, Sweden, Umeå, Sweden
- 2DIHA, Pontifical Catholic University, Santiago, Chile
- 3PermaChile network, Földgömb foundation, Budapest, Hungary
- 4Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
- 5Instituto de Desarrollo Económico e Innovación (IDEI), Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, Argentina
- 6Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia (CIEP), Coyhaique, Chile
- 7Cape Horn International Center (CHIC), Puerto Williams, Chile
- 8Centro de Investigación Dinámica de Ecosistemas Marinos de Altas Latitudes (IDEAL), Punta Arenas, Chile
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Cryotourism is a distinct form of tourism which is based on ice and snow cover and is thus highly determined by climatic conditions. While a considerable body of literature addresses the tourism-climate change nexus in (sub-)Arctic and European Alpine regions, little is known about the situation in South American high mountain and sub-Antarctic areas. Against this background, this perspective article presents a research agenda for cryotourism-climate change nexus from a South-North perspective. The initial step towards this objective was an 18-days research visit in Chile and Argentina during January and February 2024. Drawing upon our field notes, current literature and the latest developments in ice and snow-based tourism, we propose three key dimensions for a research agenda, namely: a) tourism mobilities and southward spatial substitution, b) socio-ecological implications of cryotourism for local communities and c) governance challenges for tourism stakeholders and policymakers. We contend that interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to tourism and climate change research are key aspects to account for the global nature of tourism mobility flows, and the interlinks between local and global processes and impacts of climatic environmental transformations.
Keywords: Ice, Snow, glaciers, nature-based tourism, cryotourism, Climate Change, peripheries
Received: 31 Oct 2024; Accepted: 08 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bachmann-Vargas, Demiroglu, Ruiz_Pereira, Bohn, Vereda, Gale and Barrena. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Pamela Bachmann-Vargas, Department of Geography, Umeå University, Sweden, Umeå, Sweden
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