It’s the same for other Mediterranean destinations, like Italy and Spain, where the tourism sector also is being hit by heat waves and wildfires. Greece, Italy, Algeria, and Tunisia combined lost more than 1,350 square kilometers to blazes that affected 120,000 people in late July, according to European Union estimates. And Greece is expecting even more extreme heat in the coming days.
Fires have chased away tourists in hard-hit parts of Greece and Italy. Rhodes saw mass cancellations of flights and the trend is similar in Sicily, said Olivier Ponti, vice president of insights at ForwardKeys, a travel data company with access to airline industry ticketing data. With that in mind, US-based climate technology startup Sensible Weather is developing insurance that would compensate people if extreme heat wrecks their holiday.
While people differ on how hot is too hot, “in the simplest version, if it was 42 degrees Celsius for three hours in the middle of the day and you couldn’t go out and do an activity, we could give you some money back,” he said. “Every day we’re seeing more business,” he said. “By Aug. 8-10, I think we’ll be back to our normal pace at all these resorts,” which account for about 90% of the island’s 220,000 beds.
While some major British operators briefly canceled all Rhodes flights and holidays — offering refunds to people who’d booked for fire-hit areas — other budget airlines kept offering seats and reported normal travel figures, HotelPlanner’s Hentschel said.