Stephen Brown is a 38-year-old software engineer living in London and currently on summer holidays selfies She’s wearing a swimsuit and T-shirt with the sunny shores of the Mediterranean as a backdrop. In the hottest months, she travels north to the Highlands of Scotland, where temperatures are milder than in southern Europe. In fact, that’s her plan this year — Brown recently commented: Guardian– Includes enjoying Loch Lomond and spending a week exploring the trails and rivers of Norway. No heatwaves. No droughts. No scorching nights with the air conditioning on full blast.

Yours is not a unique case. On the contrary. Brown’s story is just one of many that has added a name, a face, and details to an increasingly recognizable trend: the story of tourists who, fed up with heat waves, are starting to look north.

Rethinking holidays. Not everything is a testimony or a story like Brown’s. The fact that tourists, exhausted by the stifling heat, are increasingly turning to new destinations in more northern latitudes is now clear enough to attract the attention of researchers.

A few days ago Guardian The European Travel Commission (ETC) has announced the results of a survey that leaves behind some revealing figures. The first is that a large majority of European travelers (around 76%) are starting to change their habits due to the climate crisis. The reason: extreme conditions are already a major factor for both tourists and professionals in the sector.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of, thank you.. ETC goes even further. Their research shows that a significant number of tourists avoid destinations where they risk exposure to sweltering temperatures. To be precise, 33.7% of Europeans say they avoid places where extreme weather events are likely to occur, while 17.3% rule out very hot areas. Just over 16% know that stable weather is what they prefer on their rest days.

The question of where and when. Extreme weather conditions don’t just make tourists rethink where they travel to. They also influence it. After all, the weather a Brit who loves the Costa del Sol is likely to encounter is not the same as the weather at the end of May or the hot days of late September and August.

The ETC survey shows that almost ten in ten respondents, or 8.5%, claim to have changed the months they travel. Similarly, data collected by the UK’s Association of Tour Operators (ABTA) suggests that ‘shoulder season’ months such as October, May or June are currently the most popular months for Britons considering travelling to the UK from abroad.

With everything, Guardian We are talking about a new trend, the beginning of a change, he explains. After speaking to Germans, British, French, Dutch, Italians, Belgians, Swiss, Spanish, Poles and Austrians, ETC concludes that in general the summer months, namely July and August, from May to October, are the most popular months for travel. And not only that. The Mediterranean destinations of Italy, Spain, France and Greece continue to attract the most tourists, as confirmed by the record figures achieved by Spain this year.

Non-repeating tourists. ETC and ABTA aren’t the only ones with reports reflecting the extent to which extreme heat could encourage tourists to look to more northerly destinations and milder temperatures. CaixaBank Research recently published a study that offered another interesting approach: despite its success as a sun-and-beach destination, extreme heat can work against Spain. The reason? It makes it harder to retain your tourists.

Their data leave little room for interpretation: they show that the likelihood of a tourist returning to Spain drops from 14% to 12.1% if they experience temperatures clearly above normal during their stay. And there are cases where the decline is even greater: among Americans, the likelihood of returning to Spain increases from 8.6% to 5%, a decline of 42.5%.

Beyond numbers. This trend is not only reflected in the figures provided by CaixaBank or ETC. Media such as Sky News or New York Times They have already published articles and reiterated testimonies showing the extent to which extreme heat can affect Spain’s tourist appeal.

The last person who influenced this idea Guardian It has an extensive history that goes beyond Spain. In addition to Brown’s case, he also mentions the case of Mathilde Martin, who stopped visiting the south of France in favor of cooler places like England, for example. Trips to the south are postponed until spring or autumn.

Another interviewee is Luka Goyarrola, a Mallorca native who is going on a trip with his partner in a few weeks. The destination: Stockholm. “I would have never imagined this 10 years ago. The summer here is amazing. Before, the heat was easy to bear; you just had to swim in the sea. Now I don’t even think about going to the beach,” he says. The heatwaves weren’t the only factors in their decision. Another factor is the saturation of the island: “It’s becoming an elite destination, a theme park.”

More interest in cold climatesThe London newspaper also spoke to an organisation specialising in cold destinations, which claimed that the number of enquiries they received from the UK and Ireland had doubled in just one year.

Another tour operator recorded 40% more bookings for Scandinavian destinations compared to 2023. The same company also decided to stop offering hiking trips to Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Portugal or Spain in July and August. Other vehicles, such as Daily MirrorHe echoed criticism from British tourists who were distressed by the drought.

Should Spain be worried? Of course, there are indicators that it could be one of the destinations affected by the trend. Beyond the CaixaBank report, there will be two important pieces of information. The first is that, in the post-pandemic scenario, the Spanish tourism sector has achieved a remarkable projection, with record numbers of visitors and projections that put the country in the position of hosting the most tourists in 2040, ahead of even France and the United States.

The second is that Spain has not been able to escape heat waves. The data once again makes it clear: 2023 was the third hottest summer since records began, surpassing only 2003 and 2022. Four heat waves were recorded on the peninsula and the Balearic Islands during the season, and AEMET itself said the summer was “extremely hot in much of the country”.

Images | Lark Ascending (Flickr) and Jorge Franganillo (Flickr)

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