According to the German news agency DW, images of tourists fleeing fires on the Greek island of Rhodes and wildfires raging out of control in Sicily, Italy, dominated European media headlines last week, raising questions about whether the Mediterranean region is still a popular summer vacation destination.
A wildfire in Rhodes spiralled out of control in July, forcing the urgent evacuation of tourists from the Greek island. Photo: AFP
The Mediterranean is particularly affected
Scientists are convinced that extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, will become more frequent in Europe in the future. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the area around the Mediterranean Sea is warming particularly rapidly.
In April 2023, extreme temperatures were recorded in Spain; and the July heatwave was recorded as the longest on record in Greece.
In July alone, more than 50,000 hectares of forest were burned in Greece, an area roughly half the size of Berlin. According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), fires in Spain reached similar levels in early April.
Over the course of last year, an area of around 800,000 hectares of forest, equivalent to the size of Montenegro, was burned in the European Union (EU). Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, said in January 2023 that the estimated loss was at least €2 billion.
Where there is fire, GDP falls
The uncontrolled fires that raged for days not only had devastating consequences for nature but also destroyed livelihoods and damaged the economy.
The EU has doubled its aerial firefighting capacity by 2023 to prevent similar or even worse disasters in the future. Photo: AP
Sarah Meier, who studies extreme weather events and the economic impact of fires at the University of Birmingham (UK), said that wherever fires rage, there is a decline in gross domestic product (GDP).
"The tourism industry employment figures show that fewer people are employed after the fires," she told DW.
According to DW, within the 27-nation EU, countries affected by wildfires can request support from Brussels. For example, more than 500 firefighters from other countries have been deployed to Greece, and the EU has also sent nine additional firefighting aircraft. All of this is covered by the EU's disaster relief mechanism.
Furthermore, reconstruction funds could be raised through an EU solidarity fund, however, the European Parliament would have the final say.
Fires and tourism in southern Europe
DW commented that the tourism industry is probably as important to Greece as the auto industry is to Germany. About 20% of Greece's economic output comes from tourism. In Spain and Italy, it is 12% and 9% respectively.
However, international rating agency Moody's recently warned that tourist destinations in Southern Europe could lose their appeal in the long term due to heat waves and wildfires, damaging the economy.
Moody's projections, based on climate models, show that coastal areas as tourist destinations will see a significant drop in arrivals under different warming scenarios, while many northern countries could attract more visitors.
The 2023 summer holidays in Greece are over. Photo: AP
Harald Zeiss, director of the Institute for Tourism Research at Harz University in Germany, said that although climate models predict heatwaves, droughts and fires, "tourism in the Mediterranean region will not collapse overnight." He predicted that tourist seasons could change, as tourists may prefer to vacation in the Mediterranean region in spring or autumn rather than in summer.
"Wildfires and other extreme events are seen by people as isolated regional events and not as deterrents, as people tend to forget about them," said Petro Beritelli, an expert at the Center for Tourism and Transport Research at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He told DW that destinations like Dubai and Las Vegas show that extreme temperatures do not deter people from traveling to such places.
Innovation to rescue the tourism industry
Johann Goldammer - Director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) in Freiburg (Germany) - proposed more improvements to prevent forest fires in the long term.
"Due to urbanization, there is too much abandoned land and as climate change, accompanied by dry periods and heat waves, exacerbates this situation, fires are inevitable," he told DW.
Goldammer argues that tourism should become “more sustainable and participatory, for example supporting Greek farmers in their olive farms or vineyards”.
After the devastating fires on the Greek island of Euboea in 2021, Goldammer presented his proposals to the Greek government. These included a sustainable land use concept and fire prevention measures. Instead of focusing solely on increasing firefighting capacity, Goldammer said, prevention should be a priority.
Portugal has taken specific measures following devastating wildfires in 2017. In an effort to prevent wildfires, one of the measures the government implemented was to ban the replanting of eucalyptus trees, which are highly flammable. The latest data from EFFIS shows that fires in Portugal have been less severe than in Spain, Italy and Greece.
