This is what they do in Banff National Park in Canada (which has several resorts). You can't buy or rent unless you're a resident who lives full time and/or works in the town.

You couldn't build most buildings in Tirol in the US due to zoning restrictions. When we lived in Innsbruck, we had an apartment with no parking spot. Here in Bend, there is tons of parking, because people regard automobile storage as more important than places for people to live.

And still rents and apartment prices are exploding in Innsbruck. Even couples that broke up keep living together for months because the affordable housing situation is dire

Not sure how you are going to convince people who live in a blizzardy mountain town to start walking to work en masse. Snowmobiles are popular in the winter at least.

My wife, baby daughter and I lived in Innsbruck and walked or biked to most things. They clear the streets and sidewalks pretty well. It gets a lot of snow - they hosted the winter olympics there twice.

Innsbruck is not a mountain town, it's the biggest city in the Tirol with >100k residents. I have yet to see someone riding a snowmobile through the city

With mountain biking already being quite popular in these places, it's not unthinkable to see some cycle commuting being done.

What happens if you live there, and then you don't? Are you forced to sell?

I don't have a house in a mountain resort area, but I do have one by the beach (not on it, but 5 minutes walking) in a town/area that gets significant summer tourist traffic. I have it because that's where I lived for a decade, but pre-COVID, I moved to the bay area for career reasons. I plan to live in it again one day, so I'd hate to have to sell it - in the meantime it's rented to people we know at a significant discount (like, a third of market rate these days) because they needed somewhere to live and we don't want a vacant home across the country. We didn't intend to buy a second home or a rental, but it became that. What happens in that sort of situation in places like Tirol?

While this is an edge case for most people, you are allowed to keep it, rent it out, whatever. The regulation doesn't work that well, as there are some loopholes and there are still significant numbers of mostly uninhabited second homes.

A lot of places in the Tirol have issues with affordable housing for workers while at the same time new hotels are being built and existing hotels expanded, increasing the demand for affordable housing by increasing the demand for workers.

There is also a small workforce crisis going on since covid, as a lot of people lost their jobs in the pandemic (hotels and restaurants closed) when lots of workers left the sector and many of the seasonal workers are not returning.

Not that much of an edge case. Something like 30 to 50 percent of landlords in the UK are "accidental landlords" iirc

I think a lot of places should have rules like that. At least they should heavily tax any home that isn't used as a primary residence (either by the owner or a renter).

That'd explain partially why I loved the vibe of that area so much. I'd live in Northern Italy in a heartbeat if I had the chance.

I don't know if south tirol (part of Italy) has any regulation similar to the one mentioned for northern tirol (part of Austria). I wouldn't be surprised

A similar rule is valid in Switzerland. People voted on it and the mountain cantons still keep grumbling but it's neccessary, I am afraid. A few years ago I went to Nendaz the autumn, a ski station in Valais. Chalets with closed shutters everywhere and few people on the streets. That was a bit sad.

Wouldn't this mean people who earn enough to rent, but not buy (ex. service workers) wouldn't be able to live there (since there wouldn't be a stock of rental housing they can rent), and thus would have to commute?

Why wouldn't there be a stock of rental housing? Nothing stops a full-time resident from owning rental property. If you want to own one (or more) houses there you have to live there. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I wish this could be tried in the USA, but voters (rich property owners) would never allow it. There are a lot of places (not just ski towns) that are ruined by rich people bidding up property and then leaving it vacant 358 days of the year.

I don't know about Tirol, but in Banff, the restrictions don't prevent construction of multi-unit buildings specifically for renters. I don't know exactly how ownership of these buildings work, but I think they're owned by the town through some non-profit org.

I don't live in Banff and I'm sure there are issues with this system, but it seems pretty reasonable. Service workers would definitely be priced out if every condo/apartment was owned privately and available as a short-term rental.

This really seems like the best solution by far.

In its intention maybe, but it just doesn't work right. There are still a lot of mostly uninhabited second homes