Is the sun starting to set on the annual holiday abroad?
Will holidaymakers add respirators and fireproof document bags to their checklists when heading off on sun holidays next year?
Tens of thousands of tourists in Greece would never have thought to pack anything to protect from raging wildfires, but it’s 2023, the world is on fire, and if you go on holiday to southern Europe, there is a chance your holiday will be shrouded in wildfire smoke, or you might be evacuated from your hotel in the middle of the night in case it becomes enveloped in flames.
Listening to the stories of Irish tourists in Rhodes who were told to leave their belongings and take their children and pile into a bus because the wind had changed direction and their hotel was threatened, I wondered if the era of the sun holiday is over?
When the Department of Foreign Affairs warns about excessive heat and wildfires in popular Mediterranean countries, are people still willing to travel to somewhere so baking hot?
Until we stop putting carbon emissions into the atmosphere, it’s going to keep getting hotter, and with it the heat domes, flash floods, wildfires, marine heatwaves, hailstorms and whatever other freakish weather events our discombobulated global system serves up.
No fun in the sun
Even though you can book package holidays as far away as 2025, surely this year’s scary summer weather will deter wannabe holidaymakers.
Wildfires aside, it’s no fun in the sun when it’s roasting. Especially travelling with kids or anyone medically vulnerable. When the temperature reaches dangerous heights, you spend a lot of time indoors waiting for it to be cool enough to venture out.
When you’re hiding from the heat from late morning to late afternoon, you might wonder what is the point of forking out thousands of euros when you could have stayed inside your own house back in Ireland.
OK, you’ll probably go to a nice restaurant when the sun sets, but if you’re like me, you’ll struggle to sleep in the heat and before you know it the sun is up again and the hot cycle repeats.
Even with all the warnings and precautions, people still die. A recent study showed that more than 60,000 excessive deaths were caused by Europe’s deadly heatwave last year.
I’ve heard from people who have just returned from a hot holiday destination and said, never again. No-one wanted to venture beyond the hotel, so the pool was a constant crowded human soup, competition for loungers was fierce, and they were never so happy to see cool and drizzly Cork airport in their lives.
Flying warms the planet
Along with the tragedy of the Rhodes wildfires is the irony that every flight depositing holidaymakers on the island adds yet more carbon emissions to the atmosphere, warms the planet more, and contributes to the climate carnage that holidaymakers ended up fleeing from and complaining about.
A round-trip flight from Dublin to Rhodes for a family of four dumps four tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, just less than the global average of one person’s emissions for an entire year.
Last summer, a boon year for Greek tourism, one million tourists were arriving in the country every week. The environmental impact of mass tourism is enormous.
At the start of May, the World Meteorological Organisation warned that the natural warming event of El Niño would steer global temperatures skywards, but experts are stunned at how hot things have got so quickly.
Will people start changing their holidaying habits in the face of such overwhelming climate chaos?
But the weather is rubbish here
I’ve just spent two weeks holidaying in Ireland and yes, it rained a lot, but thanks to Met Eireann’s rainfall radar app we dodged the worst of the downpours and still had fun.
When the sun does finally come out and you find yourself on a pristine beach all to yourself, it’s like winning the Lotto.
We had to pack clothes and footwear for all weather eventualities, but in fact we had beautiful sunny weather on Bere Island and if I had a choice between changeable Irish summer weather and searing Mediterranean weather, I would pick Ireland every time.
In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed newspaper articles advising how to travel to a heatwave zone with kids, or ones promoting “cooler holiday destinations” in Scandinavia. Here’s an idea - don’t go! Holiday at home, protect the planet and protect your kids’ future.
As the global temperatures continue to rise and mass tourism destinations become undesirable, holidaying in Ireland might in fact become a privilege.
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