SAFETY AND LIABILITY IN THE PRACTICE OF SKIING: how law and cognitive sciences shape the driving factor of winter tourism

Focusing on the Italian legal context, this article sheds light on how safety and liability rules affecting skiing interact with the economies of winter tourism sports regions, showing how these areas are highly dependent on the tourists’ demand of skiing. In so doing, it argues that the optimal rules of liability addressing the allocation of the social costs implied by the accidents occurring in the ski areas should consider insights from cognitive sciences, suggesting that the skiers’ behaviour plays a major role in reducing the rate of ski injuries, since this behaviour is highly responsive to the conditions of safety perceived on the slopes and it is ultimately driven by the “sensation seeking” of the skiers. The article ends advocating the need for a uniform EU legislation addressing the safety and liability rules applicable to the services offered by ski area operators to European customers.