"I'm investigating whether the sustainability strategies of Alpine destinations have an influence on the consumer behavior of mountain bike tourists," says the student from the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. The 28-year-old mountain biker from Basel has known the scene since he started biking at the age of 14 and has also been active in the field of gravity and trail building for some time (www.djlcrew.com).

"I have already interviewed various experts from the industry for my master's thesis. I will also be interviewing destination managers in Austria and Switzerland as well as mountain bikers directly on site."

In order to improve the validity of the data, Schaltegger is also conducting an online survey. It is a short online questionnaire with around 30 questions that can be completed in around 10 minutes and the data collection is completely anonymous. The thesis is written for the FHNW. It is a student master's thesis project with no involvement of companies with economic interests.