CNN —
Steve Perillo, CEO and third-generation owner of New Jersey-based tour operator Perillo Tours, said he hasn’t seen a surge in travelers booking trips to Europe since the 1970s.
The company, best known for its bespoke tours to Italy, typically sells about 80% of its annual capacity, Perillo said. So far in 2023, about 96% of the company’s 500 annual flights have been booked, including destinations in Spain and Greece, and Perillo said the company will continue to increase the number of flights until it begins marketing for the 2024 season. It expects that number to reach 100% within a week. .
For Perillo, hints of the upcoming blockbuster season began to emerge last fall, when the company offered around 5% off on Black Friday. “I should have charged more on Black Friday,” he jokes. “That’s when we realized that [demand] It was crazy, so I called all my friends on Black Friday night and said, ‘This is going to be crazy.’ ”
In many parts of Europe, frenzy is already underway as hordes of Europe-bound tourists follow in the footsteps of their 2022 predecessors, well trodden by last season’s surge in post-COVID-19 lockdowns. ing.
The number of Americans traveling to Europe this summer is expected to jump 55% compared to last year, and is already up a staggering 600% compared to 2021, according to travel insurance company Allianz Partners. . London, Paris and Dublin topped the list in 2023. List of the top 10 most popular destinations revealed in Allianz’s annual review. Rome, Reykjavik, Amsterdam and Lisbon also made it into the top 10.
The European Travel Commission also predicts strong demand for European holidays in 2023, with almost half of all destinations on the continent expected to return to more than 80% of tourist numbers in 2019.
Of course, this demand is driving up prices. Airfares to Europe are at their highest in five years, according to flight tracking site Hopper. Round-trip tickets to the continent now average more than $1,200, about $300 more than in 2022 (a 26% increase from pre-pandemic 2019 prices), according to a company spokesperson.
Hotel prices are also rising. European hotel prices are expected to increase the most in 2023, according to American Express Global Business Travel. Paris (up 10% year-on-year), Stockholm (up 9%) and Dublin (up 8.5%) are among the destinations predicted by AEGBT. Look at the highest rise.
But these soaring prices didn’t dampen our collective wanderlust. Many European hubs have been crowded with tourists in recent weeks, with fully booked hotels, packed museums and overflowing restaurants becoming increasingly common, especially in high-demand cities such as Barcelona, Rome and Paris. There is.
Michel Christophe/ABACA/Shutterstock
Tourists visiting Europe’s top vacation spots this summer can expect to battle crowds.
Particularly surprising to some is the audience’s arrival so early in the season. “When I look out the window, it feels like July already,” says Milou Halbesma, director of Amsterdam’s Rembrandt House Museum, housed in the Dutch master’s former residence.
This spring, the museum announced a major renovation, opening its attic to the public and offering museum visitors “30 percent more Rembrandts,” Halbesma said. In anticipation of a “very busy summer” ahead, the museum added five staff members in July and August and added new visitor services, including multimedia tours and children’s tours available in 13 languages.
Overall, Amsterdam’s cultural scene is enjoying a moment in the spotlight following the fantastic success of the Rijksmuseum’s just-concluded Vermeer exhibition. Art lovers and museum visitors are among the most popular tourist groups, city officials say, amid an ongoing campaign to cut down on “nuisance tourism” such as bachelorette and bachelorette parties.
“We’re very happy to welcome everyone, and we hope that we’ll see more cultural tourists and less of these stag parties and groups,” Halbesma says. “The people of Amsterdam are the kindest, most tolerant and relaxed people in the world. But [rowdy tourists] You should behave a little better. ”
Meanwhile, in other parts of the continent, popular shows like HBO’s “White Lotus” and Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” are attracting legions of selfie fans. Searches for flights to Sicily, the idyllic island where the second season of “The White Lotus” was filmed, soared by triple digits this summer, with searches for Messina up 335%, according to Expedia data. , searches for Palermo increased by a massive 335%. 180%.
Jen Rice, a North Carolina-based journalist and brand consultant, witnessed its popularity firsthand during a recent visit to Palermo. Mr Rice described the Sicilian capital as “absolutely insane” in early June, with tourists “flowing into the streets like it was Mardi Gras”.
“I’ve never seen so many people on the streets on a Saturday night,” said Rice, who is on a three-month trip to Europe for the second consecutive summer. “You could barely make your way down the street to get to another bar. People were crammed in like sardines everywhere.”
Traditionally popular tourist attractions, landmarks, and events are also becoming obsolete. Perillo says he’s heard anecdotes about tour guides in Rome who had to call by a certain weekly deadline just to secure a reservation for the Colosseum. “People start lining up at midnight just to get a shot,” he says. “Everyone who wants to go to Rome wants to go to the Colosseum.”
I could barely walk across the street to get to another bar. People were packed like sardines everywhere.
Jen Rice
In Paris, Arnaud Morandi, general manager of the five-star, 54-room boutique hotel Fauchon L’Hôtel Paris, says visitors can attend the ongoing French Open, major concerts, or make reservations at popular restaurants. Expectations should be tempered.
“Everything seemed to sell out pretty quickly,” Morandi said. “Everything leisure-related, including fine dining and luxury hotels, is being booked much earlier and far in advance than ever before.”
Fauchon, which opened in 2018, continues to set its own occupancy records, with several sold-out days already in June, July and August. “[The city] It’s not as busy as we’re planning to be in the next few weeks, but we’re getting there,” Morandi said.
Mark Brussels/Alamy Stock Photo
In some places, peak season levels of congestion can be seen even at the beginning of summer.
Many travelers heading to Europe have been forced to adjust their plans to cope with record crowds and soaring expenses this summer. For example, Rice says even low-cost airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair rely on trains and ferries to avoid “very expensive” airfares.
Residents of Europe are also feeling their summer vacation plans in jeopardy. Sarah Ferguson, who moved from South Florida to Amsterdam with her husband and four sons in April 2021, said she has yet to return to the United States with her family because of the cost of her six plane tickets. do not have. She’s all here,” she explains.
However, traveling to various parts of Europe, a major motivator for families to move abroad in the first place, is becoming increasingly cost-prohibitive. Train tickets, a mode of transportation that Ferguson and her husband aspired to do more of, often cost more than airfare.
“Before we moved, we had the idea of showing our kids our amazing country on a great train trip, and all six of us were going to learn how to pack our bags in one and leave. ” says Ferguson. “Unfortunately, that was never the case. During these two years of his life, our expat friends were always talking about how train tickets were more expensive than plane tickets. It’s ridiculous.”
As a result, the family moved their summer vacation into a road trip-style adventure. Mr. Ferguson rented two hybrid Toyota Corollas in August and drove 15 hours to a camping resort in Croatia he visited last year, this time staying in a seaside villa. “I went for a drive last year and it was so beautiful,” she says. “You have to get creative.”
Paula Henderson, a dual American and Polish citizen who has lived in Paris for seven years, has also changed the way she travels to Europe. Until recently, Henderson, a content and travel writer, was taking one or two weekend trips each month to different countries. However, she will be staying close to her home this summer, as she plans to travel around France on weekends and explore more of Paris itself.
“I can’t imagine my life without traveling, but I’m now more conscious of what I do,” Henderson explains. “But it was very frustrating…because… [travel] You have to plan far in advance, and not just in terms of price. ”
Only time will tell whether more frustrations lie ahead for travelers in terms of disruption from last season’s flight cancellations, delays and other disruptions. So far, several issues have arisen, including ongoing protests in Paris, unions, and cast members. Strike at Disneyland Paris In early June, passport scanners at Heathrow and other UK airports broke down over a weekend in May. But the prevailing mood among many travelers, even in the most crowded places, seems to be a mixture of excitement and a “carpe diem” attitude.
“There’s no excuse not to go see these places just because they’re crowded,” Rice says. “Everywhere is crowded now, so you have to be a little smarter and do more research. But the most important thing is to do and see what you want to see, not what other people are talking about. I put Venice on this “unvisible”. After years of struggling with a “crowded list,” this is the year to jump into it. ”
