Europe, the world’s fastest warming continent, is set to experience another scorching hot summer, meteorologists are warning, and tourists are once again heading to hot spots.
Last year, much of southern Europe was hit by a prolonged heatwave with temperatures reaching 118 degrees Fahrenheit and lasting for up to two weeks or more. The sweltering heat ruined summer holidays, causing tourists to succumb to heatstroke in crowded tourist destinations and sparking evacuations due to wildfires in Greece, Italy and Spain.
“Our computer models are largely in agreement that this will be another unusually warm summer, especially through late July and August,” said Todd Crawford, vice president of meteorology at AtmosphericG2, a Manchester, New Hampshire-based weather and climate information company. The company expects this year’s heat to be on par with 2022, which was Europe’s hottest summer on record, with the most unusual heat predicted for southern parts of countries popular with tourists, including Greece, Croatia and Italy.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, since 1991, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, and 23 of the 30 most severe heat waves in Europe since 1950 have occurred since 2000, five of them in the past three years. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said several factors contribute to the continent’s vulnerability, including the proportion of European land mass in the Arctic, which is warming the fastest on the planet, and changes in atmospheric circulation.
But despite the predicted and growing trend of hotter summers, demand remains strong for destinations that have seen temperatures reach 100 degrees or higher in recent summers. Overall, U.S. demand for travel to Europe is up from last year, according to travel site Hopper. Rome, Paris and Athens are among the most searched for cities among the billions of summer vacation destination searches made on Kayak and Expedia each year.
“Destinations are starting to book up again, but what really characterizes people is how quickly they forget and procrastinate after bad experiences,” said Stefan Goessling, a professor of tourism and climate change at Sweden’s Linnaeus University. “People exposed to life-threatening events like wildfires may reconsider their travel destinations, but for the general public, we have yet to see a big change in decision-making due to heat.”
Green spaces and heat managers: cities adapt
As summer approaches, popular tourist destinations that were hit hard last year are working on measures to ensure the safety and comfort of residents and visitors. In 2021, Athens became the first European city to appoint a Chief Heat Officer to oversee these efforts. One of the first steps has been to classify heatwaves by severity, like hurricanes, as an early warning system for potential impacts on human health. They are also giving names to heatwaves to highlight their potential risks.
“Heat is a silent killer, and predictions for the next few years are that it will only get worse, which is why we are redesigning the city and making changes to adapt,” said Elisabet Bargiani, chief heat officer for the city of Athens. In addition to raising awareness, the city plans to implement additional measures, such as increasing the number of green spaces and creating cooler public areas.
For tourists planning to visit Athens this summer, Bargianni recommends using the Extrema Global app, which calculates the coolest route from point A to point B, depending on the current temperature and tree density. The city already has several free, air-conditioned cooling centers.
During a heatwave last July, the Acropolis was forced to close from midday to early evening to protect visitors after some collapsed from the heat, and Barjani said the culture ministry could make a similar decision if the heat wave is severe again this year.
Heat and Tours: Trip Advisors Get Creative
Travel advisors are also taking the heat into account with flexible itineraries, scheduling sightseeing in cities like Rome, Barcelona, Paris and Athens for cooler morning and evening hours and arranging air-conditioned transport.
“They’ll probably do an activity or tour in the morning, then have lunch and then go back to the hotel in the mid-to-late afternoon to sit by the pool or go to the beach,” said Gary Portuesi, co-managing partner of Authentic Explorations, a New York-based travel company that specializes in Europe.
If customers do want to take a daytime tour, the company works with local partners to make the experience as comfortable as possible. “For example, if it’s a six-hour tour, we’ll shorten it to four hours and take you to an air-conditioned gelato place for a break,” Portuesi said.
It wasn’t just the heat that trip advisors had to deal with, there were other unpredictable weather events. Last summer, parts of the continent were hot and dry, while others were cold and wet. “There were periods when the Dolomites were hotter than Sicily during the peak of summer,” says Jennifer Schwartz, partner at Italy-based Authentic Explorations. “The most important thing in our job is to set expectations about the variables and guide people, rather than telling them not to come because it’s too hot.”
Heat stroke insurance?
To help travelers book with more peace of mind, Sensible Weather, a Los Angeles-based startup that offers weather guarantees for vacations and outdoor experiences, recently added high temperature protection to its coverage. When booking through Sensible’s partners, travelers can add daily protection and claim compensation if temperatures exceed a threshold, typically set at 90 to 100 degrees. Currently, the insurance is only available in the U.S., but the company says it will gradually roll it out to Europe and other regions.
“Our goal is to cover everything that could ruin a trip – usually rain, but temperature is a close second,” said company founder Nick Kavanaugh, who was developing the product while experiencing a heatwave in Barcelona last year.
Customers do not have to cancel their trip to receive a refund. Package tour customers will be refunded the average daily rate for their entire trip for each day the heat threshold is exceeded. “Customers can go on vacation, but if it’s too hot to go outside for a few hours during the day, we’ll refund you if you stay in an air-conditioned room,” Cavanaugh said.
Heading to cooler weather
Some travelers who were slammed by Europe’s scorching heat last summer are looking to cooler destinations this summer, such as Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland. For example, searches for flights to Tromso, Norway, are up 85% compared to 2023, according to Kayak.
Joanna Walker, a 43-year-old recruiter from Boston, was caught in a heatwave in Italy with her family last July and vowed never to return for the summer. She said she had been encouraged to travel during the off-season but couldn’t because her children were in school.
“There was no shade and the water was so hot we couldn’t even cool off in the pool,” Walker recalls. “We had hoped to see the sights of Florence and have a long lunch in the piazza, but instead we found ourselves cooped up in an expensive air-conditioned villa.”
This year, her family has booked a fjord tour of Norway for July, where temperatures stay in the low 60s Fahrenheit. “It’ll have a very different feel to Italy. There’s a lot of nature, but not so much history. But at least it’ll be cool enough to experience something.”
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