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Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft
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Die zweisprachige internationale wissenschaftliche Fachzeitschrift „Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft“ („Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society“) ist das wichtigste regelmäßig erscheinende Organ der „Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft“. Sie erscheint seit 1857 und ist die älteste noch existierende Fachzeitschrift geographischen Inhalts im deutschen Sprachraum. Dabei werden neue Erkenntnisse aus allen Bereichen der Geographie, Kartographie und verwandter Raumwissenschaften vermittelt, über Fachfragen in Forschung und Lehre, nationale und internationale geographische Aktivitäten sowie über Personalia informiert und Gesellschaftsnachrichten publiziert.
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epub.oeaw – Institutionelles Repositorium der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften epub.oeaw – Institutional Repository of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, Band 167/2025, pp. 219-253, 2026/05/21
Band 167 (Jahresband), Wien 2025
Volume 167 (Annual volume), Vienna 2025
Animals contribute to tourism, but tourism-related research focuses primarily on free-ranging or captive wildlife tourism. St. Moritz in Switzerland is a premium desti-nation where horses have been used for tourism for more than 160 years, for instance in White Turf racing and Snow Polo. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyse how horses contribute to the tourism event economy of St. Moritz and how locals and tourists perceive equestrian event tourism. To address these questions, a survey with 352 questionnaires and ten expert interviews were conducted. A total of 74.7 percent of the inhabitants surveyed found the equestrian events positive, with the main reasons they cited including the traditional nature of the events locally (equestrian events have been held regularly since 1906), the associated entertainment and marketing for St. Moritz, the horses themselves as animals and relat-ed equestrian sports. The equestrian event tourism is responsible for many primary and secondary effects that are important for the region, resulting in an added value of at least CHF 47,000,000 annually, generated by at least 60,000 visitors. The effort expended, including the preparation of infrastructure for the horse races and polo on the frozen lake in winter, is internationally unique. This equestrian tourism demonstrates how forms of animal-based tourism can contrib-ute significantly to the economy while ensuring international recognition derived from the annually held events that contrast clearly with other established forms of animal-based tourism like zoos or safaris. This demonstrates that successful animal-based tourism can be achieved not only with unique wildlife species in their natural habitats, but with non-unique domesticated species.
Keywords: Animal-based tourism, animal geographies, more-than-human geographies, equestrian sports events, frozen lake, White Turf, St. Moritz, Switzerland.