About one in ten of the world's tourists heads for the Alps
If the British did not actually invent Alpine tourism, we were certainly among the first foreigners to regard mountains as there to be climbed.
It was a view most local people found incomprehensible a century and more ago.
Now, though, it is very different. Without tourism, even more young people would leave the mountains for the cities. But reconciling visitors, locals and Nature is becoming almost impossibly difficult.
The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development reported in 1999 that tourism was the world's leading industry, with the turnover from the international side of the business worth $444bn annually.
Massive footprint
The Alpine share of global tourism is reckoned to be about 10%, or 120 million visitors a year.
Inevitably, the Alps' invaders have a massive impact:
He says the Alps are "probably the world's most saturated tourist region, as well as being perhaps the most fragile ecosystem".
"Despite all the commandments and entreaties in every tourist office and along every path," he writes, "there is still too much litter, too many fires, as well as wanton destruction of rare fauna and flora and desecration of the cultural heritage."
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says: "Mountain parks have been identified as especially at risk from the environmental destruction caused by climate change.
Changes found
"As the climate warms, species that live in the higher Alpine zones are forced to move higher on the mountain to find suitable habitat, and this can drastically reduce the living area available to them," warns the organisation.
"Scientists have already recorded changes in Alpine vegetation as a result of global warming; if the rate of climatic change continues to accelerate, then the extinction of some mountain plants and animals is certain," it adds.
The WWF identifies the Swiss national park, the Majella national park in Italy, Hohe Tauern and Nockberge national narks in Austria, and Berchtesgarten national park in Germany as Euopes's most vulnerable areas.
Direct threat
But for the people who live year-round in the mountains, attempts to limit tourism are a direct threat to their livelihoods.
There are already signs that some of the cheaper package ski tours are opting for North America, where the season is longer than in the Alps.
Thoughtful tourists aim to "take away nothing but memories, and leave behind nothing but footprints".
Ideally, that is the way forward for the Alps. Practically, it remains an elusive goal.