Europe's Green Transition - The Climate Opportunity. Shaping Sustainable Tourism Behaviour in the Alps with the Support of Image-Recognition

After more than one year of nearly "no-tourism", people are looking forward to traveling again around the globe, leading to reliefs to tourism destinations. However, the threat of climate change, the global call for reduction of CO2-gas emissions forces tourism destinations, especially when they are related to winter tourism, to foster a long-term sustainable transition towards a more resilient, low-carbon tourism strategy. Therefore, besides reducing CO2-gas emissions, measures against potential over tourism-effects have to be taken, and a more qualitative than quantitative tourism approach should be fostered. This study validated insights of image-recognition-technology discloses tourism behavior patterns, which can be used to split and guide tourists to various routes, to reduce huge crowds in tourism hot spots (threat of overtourism), to transform tourism transportation to CO2-friendly options, and to balance the negative externalities for the environment, as well as for the local population, besides encouraging a long-term sustainable economy within the Euregio.