Economic development of mountainous areas through sport activities and recreation

More than 40 million people on earth live or work at altitudes above 3.000m. Even more people visit medium and height altitudes for tourism, business, scientific and/or military purposes. The mountains and especially the alpine and subalpine grasslands consist the natural environment for winter sports and a place for training, exercise and recreation but during the snowing period. Nowadays, many sport activities take place in mountainous areas year- round and with increasing tendency, especially family sport tourism, which finds there its best expression. Characteristic of this tendency is that the ski resorts in the European countries, are more crowded in summer than in winter. The international modern tendencies in tourism, are toward many parallel, alternative actions, such as, recreation, mountain sports, environmental education e.t.c. The subalpine grasslands in Greece consist a friendly natural environment for human, with impressive landscapes, ideal climate conditions for sports, training and recreation. The development of the mountainous areas of our country for tourism has great potential.