Stockholm instead of Rome? October instead of July? Heatwaves are changing tourism

It was mid-July, the peak summer travel season, and the news from Europe didn’t look good:

a heat-induced “surface defect” briefly closed the runway at London Luton Airport.

Trains have been delayed or canceled Great Britain due to overheating of the tracks.

More than two dozen weather stations in France have recorded theirs temperatures higher.

And the forest fires burned in the tourist regions of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, also on the outskirts of Athens.

“If you were in the center of the city, you could look out and see the Acropolis, and in the distance you could see the red haze,” said Peter Vlitas, executive vice president of Internova Travel Group, who was in Athens during the fires. of the fire have checked ever since.

Vlitas added that he could smell the smoke from his hotel and that sometimes he had to close the door to prevent fine ash from entering his room.

But life in Athens, he said, was more or less as usual.

“The taverns are full at night and the taxi drivers are busy, which is always a great barometer,” said Vlitas, still in Athens.

“Greece is experiencing what the rest of Europe has: a number touristic record“.

After more than two years of postponing holidays, travelers are reluctant to cancel their trips, even in the face of the news.

But several people in the industry have described an increasing number of travelers who are adjusting their plans to take into account the high temperatures changing destinationschanging their daytime schedules or delaying their travels one or two months.

Given the pace and trajectory of climate change, such changes are likely to become more common and more necessary in the coming years.

This is especially true for travel to Europe, a region that climate researchers have described as a ‘hot spot’ for intense summer heat and where future heat waves are predicted to be. more longer, more frequent and more intense.

Despite the high tourist numbers this summer, there are already subtle signs that the heat is causing changes that could become the norm in the future.

The summer travel calendar in Europe began to spread in the quieter (and cooler) months. April, May, September and October, while many travelers begin to change their itineraries north and towards the coasts.

change itinerary

Karen Magee, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Knowledge experienceshe said starting in mid-July, his travel agency began receiving calls from customers asking if they could change their travel plans to take account of the heat.

“It was new,” Magee said.

“I don’t remember the last time we had people calling and saying:

“Maybe we will skip rome and opt for a city more accessible to the beach ‘.

Or maybe they shortened their itinerary in the city and decided to go to the countryside a little earlier than expected. “

Dolev Azaria, founder of Azaria Travel, helped a family make the last minute decision to spend the first five days of their vacation in Amsterdam instead of Rome, just to avoid the heat.

Other customers have demolished their plans for the Tuscany, Italy, and rebooked for Sicilywhere they would have at least one Mediterranean breeze.

“The goal is to move a customer from any heat-trapped city to a waterfront neighborhood,” Azaria said.

“So places like Copenhagen and Amsterdamplaces our customers may not have initially chosen to go. “

But Azaria said she hasn’t had full cancellations so far.

“There has been so much repressed question“, She said.

“Basically we are condensing two years of travel in this summer”.

Looking ahead to next year, Azaria is planning an extension of the summer travel season.

“We are already seeing that summer really extends to the end of September, even up to half October“, She said.

Any traveler who might consider abandoning a trip due to extreme heat may find that their cancellation policies leave few opportunities for refunds.

The clients of Jude Vargas, travel consultant and founder of Pyxis Guides, were worried about the heat during an upcoming family trip to Portugal, but remained loyal in the end.

“They were worried that their children would be out,” Vargas said.

“But due to the cancellation policies, they just realized: ‘Okay, we’re engaged.'”

Travel insurance is also unlikely to cover travelers who cancel a trip due to a heat wave, said Dan Drennen, director of sales and marketing at the Travel Insurance Center.

The only policy that would apply in such a scenario is “cancellation for any reason” insurance, Drennen said. She added that this type of insurance is usually a 40% more expensive than formal coverage, and generally reimburses a maximum of 75% of the total travel cost.

He advised travelers to do their research and speak to a broker before purchasing insurance so they understand what’s covered and what’s not.

“People assume these policies do everything and they don’t,” Drennen said.

adjusting along the way

Those who undertake to travel can take a number of practical steps to control the heat.

Vargas has helped his clients shift their tours from the afternoon to the cooler hours of the evening, but as this travel season is so busy, it can be hard to find last minute seats.

He also recommends traveling with a spray bottle with a fan attached, a portable device he described as “a saving grace, especially if you have children.”

Having an umbrella to use as an umbrella can also help.

He added that, planning to travel next year, he is focusing on months like May and October.

Héctor Coronel Gutiérrez, Director of Tourism of the Municipality of Madrid, advised visitors who come to his city in the height of summer to look for green spaces, including Madrid’s Río Park, which has many shady areas and an area of ​​fountains where children can splash in the water.

He added that while July and August are hot, the city tends to be quieter than May and June, so it’s easy avoid the crowd.

Air conditioning is also easy to find in Spain, although American visitors may find buildings warmer than they are used to.

Earlier this week, in an effort to reduce energy consumption, the Spanish government announced that shopping malls, cinemas, airports and other venues will no longer be able to set their thermostats below 27 degrees Celsius or 80. , 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, travel writer and tour operator Rick Steves, who recently returned from Spain, said summer travelers might actually feel more comfortable in Madrid than in a city like London, Paris or Frankfurt, Germany, where high temperatures and air conditioning are not the norm.

“Used places crazy hot, like Spain, well, they have a lifestyle that fits that. They take a nap. They have canvas awnings on the walkways so that people can get shade as they walk. They have restaurants designed to allow people to eat in breezy places, ”Steves said.

In addition to practical steps like wearing sunscreen and drinking plenty of water, Steves advised travelers to do so book your museum tickets in advance to avoid queuing in the heat.

When planning future trips, he echoed Vargas by recommending people to consider traveling during “shoulder season,” which his travel company now refers to as April and October, not May and September.

“This is a period of adaptation as we prepare to experience the worsening impacts of climate change,” said Steves, noting the irony of travelers who complain of higher temperatures even when boarding its carbon-laden flights to. Europe.

He suggested that tourism companies should invest in climate protection, climate smart agriculture and similar initiatives mitigate the emissions of his travels in Europe.

Carbon offsets are another option, but experts generally agree that those programs alone cannot cover the full carbon cost of our flights.

Even if we had stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, a certain amount of additional heating is already integrated into the system, said Dr. Rebecca Carter, who leads the work on climate adaptation at the World Resources Institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC.

But we haven’t stopped throwing up gases that warm the climate: Carbon dioxide emissions are on the rise and the planet is warming faster than ever.

The intense heat of this summer “is not a fluke,” said Carter, but rather “the start of a trend that we will see more“.

The field trials in Europe are clear:

in Great Britainthe 10 hottest years on the record books (dating back to 1884) all occurred in this century.

In Germanythe average annual number of “hot days” (those with temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius, 86 degrees Fahrenheit or higher) has had a significantly higher trend since the 1950s.

It’s inside FranceScientists have calculated that average temperatures in the northeastern city of Strasbourg are now roughly equivalent to those observed in Lyon, which is about 390km to the south-southwest, in the 1970s.

Carter added that climate change will continue to manifest itself in the form of heat waves and other extreme weather events, many of which will disrupt travel logistics.

He noted that the planes are not certified to fly above certain temperatures, a limit that has blocked flights in the past.

But when it comes to individual travel decisions, a lot will depend on personal tolerance.

“In the long list of factors we all face when deciding where to go, when to go, whether to go,” Carter said, “weather and climate change should be part of the calculation.”

Paige McClanahan, a regular travel employee, is also the host of The Better Travel Podcast.

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