ABSTRACT
Once banned from many ski areas, snowboarding has achieved dramatic growth and has emerged as the world’s fastest growing winter sport. The endorsement of snowboarding as an Olympic sport in 1998 highlighted the sport’s popularity. During 2004 snowboard participation in the USA was estimated to be 6.3 million (National Ski and Snowboard Retailer Association, 2004). Recent figures from the Canadian Snow Industry highlight that snowboarders occupied more than 30 per cent of the ski areas during 2005 (Canadian Ski Council, 2006).
