Extreme weather events do not affect tourism

Traffic growth continues, but the market is starting to adapt its packages to the new conditions

Mark Swerin, The New York Times

The summer we are going through has been difficult. Four long-term heatwaves hit the southern US, citizens in southern Europe experienced record temperatures and hundreds of people were hospitalized for heatstroke in South Korea during the World Scout Meeting.

Despite the crises, global tourist arrivals are estimated to be this year increased by 30% compared to last year.

As the summer travel engine kicked into gear, it wasn't just extreme temperatures that upended months of plans for many travelers, but also wildfires, hail and tornadoes. In the usually idyllic US state of Vermont, tourists were faced with unprecedented flooding. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in Rhodes under threat of wildfires, while a popular music festival was canceled in the Netherlands due to concerns about impending storms.

Dangerous weather has become an integral part of the summer experience. According to the US Weather Service, the US has experienced four climate disasters since May. The federal National Park Service estimates that more visitors died from the heat this year than any other year, while a recent European study found that heatwaves kill 61,000 people on the continent each year.

Despite the crises, global tourist arrivals (the total number of visitors crossing borders) are estimated to be up 30% this year compared to last year. The endless queues thus continue to form at the Louvre, the Colosseum and the Propylaea of the Acropolis. Visitors to these monuments are not deterred by the unbearable temperatures, as Leslie Cafferty, representative of the booking platform Booking, finds.

“We do not see the slightest decrease in demand. The lust for helium remains unquenchable,” Cafferty emphasizes. Italy has about 1.1 million hotel rooms, Finland only 65,000. The change is not long in coming, however, regardless of whether or not cooler destinations can handle the new demand. The Commission estimates for its part that tourism in the European continent will continue to strengthen, with the higher temperatures causing a shift in demand towards northern Europe, instead of the Mediterranean. Southern European beaches are already losing 10% of their summer visitors every year. Miku Sekizawa planned to travel with her family to Athens from Chicago in August. However, the weather report – and her advanced pregnancy – made her reconsider. “We changed our plans last week after realizing how hot it was going to be there. I can't handle this kind of heat while I'm pregnant,” explains the 36-year-old accountant, who changed her bookings to eventually visit Paris, Strasbourg and Amsterdam.

Some states have adopted measures to push tourists to more temperate destinations. China has pledged to build large mountain resorts in so-called “22 degree Celsius destinations”, considered the ideal atmospheric temperature in China. These centers will attract provincial Chinese tourists away from Beijing and Shanghai during the warmer months of the year.

Hotels and travel agencies will have to come to terms with these unpredictable conditions, which threaten their financial survival and disappoint their customers. “Tourists come to us looking for activities. This year, the countryside looks really menacing,” says Piers Makalli, owner of Villa Trieste M in the Italian town of Azolo, popular with cyclists and mountaineers thanks to the neighboring Dolomites. This summer, however, the region was hit by a series of extreme weather events, from persistent rains to hailstorms that caught the attention of the international media. “We wanted to avoid the TVs, but the weather had other plans,” notes McCallie.

Chris Kelly and his wife, Nina Refelt, owners of a travel agency specializing in Grand Canyon tours, say that they have become more cautious when offering hiking tours of the canyon, discouraging older visitors and recommending a jeep tour instead. In an attempt to combat the effects of the sweltering heat, the municipality of Paris installed cooling water vapor systems at the Eiffel Tower for visitors waiting in long queues.

Source: www.kathimerini.com.cy

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