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This paper aims to examine tourists’ preferences for package holidays offering different bundles of activities at a winter mountain destination. A winter mountain destination is usually chosen for snow sports, particularly skiing, but increasingly more tourists want to fully exploit their holiday opportunity with an authentic and comprehensive experience of the place. After collecting qualitative data on how tourists spend their typical day, quantitative research is conducted to segment the demand on the basis of tourists’ preferences for bundles of activities undertaken during a winter mountain holiday.

The study uses a mixed method. Two focus groups are included to understand how tourists spend their time at a winter destination; results are then used to identify the components of the holiday, which are then combined in eight packages using an orthogonal array. A questionnaire is administered to a sample of 273 tourists at a well-known mountain destination to measure their preference for different packages. Results are analyzed using factor analysis, conjoint analysis and cluster analysis.

The most significant findings are as follows: winter mountain holidaying is a highly segmented market. Even at a mountain destination strongly associated with skiing, there are many tourists who do not ski and spend their time doing something else; food and beverage, and all their related activities, are at the top of all tourists’ interests, and passionate skiers very highly rate the experience of tasting, eating, understanding and buying local food; and there are four segments of winter mountain holiday tourists who show very differentiated interests for the different activities that can be experienced at a mountain location.

This paper considers what lies beyond sport at winter mountain destinations, and it reveals new possibilities for configuring bundles of activities to attract different segments of tourists.

The aim of this paper is to profile the World Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) theme issue “Tourism sustainability in the Alpine region: What are the major trends and challenges?” with reference to the experience of the theme editors and writing team.

This paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editors to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting-point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

It draws on a multidisciplinary approach to identify some key components of sustainable tourism for the French and Italian Alps. It reflects on research and stakeholder interaction that helped to shape the current and future thinking about how Alpine mountain resorts can enhance sustainability in relation to the destination offer, accommodation, transport and mobility and institutional, legal and socio-economic aspects.

The theme issue outcomes provide lines of enquiry for others to explore, and they reinforce the value of WHATT’s approach to collaborative working and writing.

The work reported in this theme issue provides research-based evidence of the need for rapid adaptation to sustainable tourism development for resorts in the French and Italian Alps. Traditionally designed to facilitate skiing and snow sports, the impact of climate change is forcing a rethink to safeguard Alpine tourism – a vital economic activity to these and most mountain tourism destinations.