How extreme heat is changing tourism

After visiting Sicily last summer, Leora Halpern Lanz immediately decided that she wanted to go back this year. But it turned out to be a very different experience during a summer of record-breaking heat.

Due to fly into Catania Airport, she and her husband arrived at Palermo instead, a three-hour car ride away, due to a fire at the original airport. Palermo was “a sea of suitcases” caused by multiple diverted flights, says Lanz, assistant dean at the School of Hospitality Administration at Boston University.

Once they got to Sicily, they dealt with temperatures of 115 degrees, coupled with siroccos—the hot, dry desert winds from North Africa that can reach hurricane speeds and cause wildfires, which they could see in the distance in the form of “fireballs.” They had no AC for about 30 hours, as the added pressure on the power system caused outages. “You couldn’t open the window or a sliding door because the heat of [this] wind just smacked you in the face,” Lanz says. “You could choke.”

It’s just one of many accounts of travel nightmares during a summer like no other. According to NASA, it was the hottest on record—by a large margin. Extreme temperatures gripped tourist destinations around the world, from Death Valley, California, to Beijing, to Athens, Greece, where iconic attractions like the Acropolis and the Parthenon closed to sightseers because temperatures soared above 110 degrees during the city’s hottest July in 50 years. Wildfires blazed on multiple continents, from Spain, to Algeria, to Hawaii.

Driven by a surge after the restlessness of the pandemic, travel boomed this summer. Take Italy, already one of the most visited destinations in the world: 8.6% more tourists arrived by plane this summer than in 2022 (which some attributed to a White Lotus effect, after the popular HBO show catapulted Sicily to the top of tourism wish lists). Along with France, Italy was the destination most booked with Intrepid Travel, an adventure tourism company with 1,000 itineraries in 103 countries, according to Matt Berna, president for the Americas.

But as tourists came for ancient history, rugged coastlines, and fresh pasta, they also had to endure relentless heat. Now, travelers with the flexibility and means may be considering other options. In bookings for 2024, there are already early signs of travelers opting for different times of the year, like spring or fall—or choosing cooler destinations altogether. If trends continue to shift, we could see summer staples like the Mediterranean replaced by Finland, Poland, and Slovenia, as people embark on “cool-cations” or begin to “chase the shade.” And the travel industry may have to evolve to fit new, year-round demands.

Tourists’ desires are already shifting. For the first time, Intrepid had the most bookings in September and October in 2023. Those are traditionally part of the “shoulder seasons,” which may now be turning into peak seasons in their own right. From early data for European travel next year, Berna shares that twice the number of people have booked for May than for August, and September has outsold August by 50%.

BeautifuLiguria is a boutique travel company catering mainly to Americans that specializes in the Liguria region of Northern Italy—between Milan and the Mediterranean Sea—which contains the city of Genoa, famous for its labyrinth of medieval alleys. CEO and cofounder Anna Merulla is seeing much less interest for July now than she did before the pandemic: More clients are willing to change to October, November, and even December. She says this trend is increasing into 2024, too.

MDCV is a collection of four estates in the southern French region of Provence that offers luxury hotel stays, dining, and vineyards that grow grapes for its rosé brand. Like many destinations, Provence had its hottest July on record. Peak season in July and August used to represent 50% of MDCV’s total business and was booked to capacity months in advance, says Maxime Mathon, director of communications and marketing. But this summer, it experienced a “double-digit drop,” he says via email. “May is the new July, and September the new August,” he adds. That’s also reflected in lunch bookings for its on-site bistros and fine-dining restaurants.

Chase Travel, a luxury booking service for Chase Sapphire card members, shared data via email that shows an increase in off-season travel this year. Chase has seen a rise in fall bookings for typical summer destinations: Rome reservations have increased by 37% for fall 2023 compared to 2022, while Cape Cod bookings have gone up by 42%, Vancouver by 46%—and Yellowstone by 280% (which could also be tied to the popularity of the Yellowstone TV show).

In many parts of the world, the travel industry will have to evolve to match supply with growing demand in shoulder seasons, particularly in less-visited destinations. In Liguria, Italy, restaurants, shops, and wineries often close in the shoulder seasons, and suppliers are less willing to work during these times after busy peak seasons. But that’s slowly changing, Merulla says. And it may be better to have year-round tourism rather than intense summer seasons, providing a more stable income throughout the year and less disturbance to locals.

It’s hard to link the shifts only to extreme heat. The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally reshaped travel patterns. “Until COVID, you had very predictable eternality of travel,” Lanz says. “I think we’re still in a period of flux.” It’s increasingly an era of digital nomads, where remote workers are logging on to their computers from anywhere in the world. Even pre-pandemic, overtourism was a problem—in places like Venice, locals rented out their Airbnbs in the summer and fled themselves, leading the city to limit Airbnb stays, as did Paris and Vienna. At a time of inflation, it’s also cheaper to travel in the shoulder seasons to avoid summer premiums.

But companies are hearing from customers that they’re motivated by climate. Seasonal shifts aside, other agencies report changing destinations altogether. Notably, many people are swapping their souvlaki for smørrebrød, as Scandinavia becomes a more popular destination. Up Norway, a company offering tailor-made trips for international travelers since 2016, has seen a big spike in interest in the past year from people avoiding Southern Europe.

Founder Torunn Tronsvang says people are still wary of the cold, especially tourists from California or Florida, but are drawn to new, Norway-specific adventures such as seeing the Northern Lights and hiking the fjords. They want to come in the summer for unique experiences like the midnight sun. “Norway is becoming a hotter and hotter destination,” she says. “Well, more and more attractive.”

Scandinavia has traditionally been more exclusive and sometimes cost-prohibitive; for the first time this year, the Norwegian government made tourism a priority investment, announcing in September its intention to become a “world-leading destination for sustainable tourism” and to develop a more “competitive and profitable tourism industry, which creates year-round jobs all over the country.” Intrepid is also setting up Scandinavian offices for the first time.

Mathon, of MDCV, says their longtime customers are now considering new summer destinations, including Scotland and Normandy, France. Other unexpected destinations may be on the horizon. In a report, the EU Commission made future projections for the year 2100 under four warming scenarios, from 1.5 to 4 degrees Celsius. (The Earth hit 1.4 degrees Celsius this year.) It showed a significant decline in summer tourism in July and a surge in April. In the highest-emission scenario, there was a 9% loss for the Greek Ionian Islands—and a 16% surge for West Wales.

One summer doesn’t necessarily make a trend

But it may not happen yet. These more bespoke agencies, catering to more affluent and flexible travelers, are seeing changes among their clientele. But Michelle Rutty, Canada Research Chair in tourism, environment, and sustainability at the University of Waterloo in Canada, is not yet seeing “grand changes” in mainstream travel patterns across the board. She says that may start to happen in the future if record summers repeat in 2024 and 2025.

But for now, most people don’t have the flexibility to travel whenever they like, but are instead driven by the school calendar. “The windows in which we have the opportunities to travel are really constrained,” Rutty says. “Not everybody has that opportunity to shift to the spring or to the fall.”

Besides, travelers from colder climates still want the sun, such as Canadians going south to the Caribbean to lounge by the pool. “For beach tourists in particular, they really are accepting of high, high temperatures,” Rutty says. Lanz can relate, as she describes how she spent her days in Sicily cooling off in the ocean. “It didn’t make us change our plans, because I’m someone who happens to like hot weather,” she says.

In that case, tourists who can bear the heat will have to be more responsible, Lanz says. That will mean being prepared for the unknown and taking simple steps like turning the hotel lights off to ease energy burdens. And, being courteous to locals and staff, in what Intrepid calls “people-positive travel.” For example, Lanz and her husband stuck to salads in Sicily, as they didn’t expect staff to cook in the sweltering heat. “I just think we need to be more respectful of people, place, and planet,” she says. “We’ve got to be nice to each other.”