Regional Mountain Conference

Rural mountain destinations that depend heavily on tourism face increasing pressures from climate change, economic instability, and public health crises. Despite the growing relevance of resilience in tourism research, destination-level resilience in rural mountain contexts remains underexplored. This study investigates how tourism stakeholders perceive resilience in two mountain tourism destinations: the Kaunertal region in Tyrol, Austria, and Mestia in Svaneti, Georgia.

Using a qualitative comparative case study design, data were collected through five focus group workshops with tourism stakeholders (n = 25). The discussions explored experiences with past crises and perceptions of resilience at the destination level. Data were analyzed following the flexible pattern matching approach.

The findings identify three key dimensions of destination resilience: community, vulnerability and health, and economy. Stakeholders in both regions emphasized the importance of social cohesion, informal cooperation, and volunteer engagement for effective crisis response. Hazard preparedness and emergency coordination were also highlighted, with Austrian stakeholders referring to established preventive infrastructure, while Georgian participants pointed to gaps in formal coordination and risk mapping. Economically, participants stressed diversification, local value creation, and reduced dependence on external markets as critical resilience strategies.

The study highlights the importance of combining local knowledge and informal practices with formal monitoring and indicators. It contributes to a contextual understanding of destination resilience and provides insights for developing measurement tools and governance strategies for rural mountain tourism destinations.