numbers have held up<\/a> \u2013 but customers have been leaving it ever later to book, he said, whether in search of a deal or because of uncertainty from disruption, war or weather.<\/p>\nDespite the intense heat, mass travel firms are clear that the template has not changed: most customers still want a hot holiday, in summer, on the beach.<\/p>\n
Garry Wilson, the chief executive of easyJet Holidays, said: \u201cWill there be long-term effects on demand? Perhaps. But in the short-term, no, we don\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing \u201cshoulder season\u201d travel outside the school holidays for those who can, including city breaks, are driven by price more than climate, several people suggest. And talk of \u201ccoolcations\u201d or people turning towards northern climes cuts little ice here. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing any of that,\u201d said Swanson. \u201cNothing\u2019s changed, the destinations are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Tunisia was forecast a 10-day stretch of 45C temperatures this summer, Tui offered customers the chance to switch their holiday elsewhere. Swanson said: \u201cWe didn\u2019t get the interest and take-up. People were expecting it to be hot and were happy to go there, and we\u2019re not seeing any change in demand. Brits like a warm holiday \u2013 if it\u2019s got a pool and air-conditioning, that works for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither does Wilson see many heading north. Citing easyJet destinations such as Troms\u00f8 in Norway or Malm\u00f6 in Sweden, he said: \u201cThey\u2019re all very nice to launch, but we send more customers to Majorca in a week than those in a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outbound holidays prospered in the heatwave, he suggested. \u201cPeople thought: \u2018You know what, we maybe don\u2019t need to go away.\u2019 But it became apparent that the UK doesn\u2019t have the infrastructure to cope \u2026 people actually were going abroad to escape the heat in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the big firms see little change in destinations, Swanson said, but added: \u201cWe\u2019ll keep it under review. Who knows where the temperature\u2019s going to go in the next few years?\u201d<\/p>\n
More people could get priced out. At last year\u2019s convention, the Spanish tourist board started pushing its cooler northern destinations; but, said Tanzer, \u201cI\u2019m not sure the north has 100m beds\u201d to accommodate the visitors who predominantly go to Spain\u2019s south, east and islands.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cCertain types of holiday could become more expensive just because there\u2019s limited availability. If the snow is higher up the mountain, there\u2019s going to be fewer skiing holidays and the price is going to go up \u2013 there\u2019s little room at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tui has not been immune. Its river cruises in Europe were marooned when the Danube\u2019s water levels dipped last month to the point where some passengers spent most of their return Austro-Hungarian cruise on a boat-replacement bus.<\/p>\n
Usually submerged areas of the Danube lie exposed in Romania amid exceptionally low water levels Photograph: Vadim Ghird\u0103\/AP<\/p>\n
Katy Berzins, the head of river cruises at Tui, said: \u201cEvery year has highs and lows and it\u2019s part of river cruising, rivers are changeable.\u201d But 2026, she said, was \u201cunprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n
The division is expanding nonetheless. Two new ships are joining its fleet \u2013 initially destined for the Seine and the Douro \u2013 that are built with lower draught levels (the vessel\u2019s vertical depth below the surface), meaning they are able to keep sailing in shallower rivers.<\/p>\n
Others are seeing faster change. James Thornton, the chief executive of Intrepid Travel, said the firm no longer sold active travel group tours in southern Europe in the summer; few had wanted to trek or cycle in that level of heat.<\/p>\n
Last year, Thornton said, there were 185 different extreme weather-related incidents that affected Intrepid holidaymakers around the world. \u201cWhen we first started, there would be a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Intrepid has long wrestled with its own impact on climate: for years, before offsetting fell into disrepute, it paid millions to offset its emissions. That did not cover the biggest factor, the flights taken by its customers to reach Intrepid tours \u2013 not entirely dissimilar from how an airport might declare itself net zero. Instead now the firm has a decarbonisation fund for local projects: \u201cUltimately you can\u2019t have sustainable travel, you can only limit the impact,\u201d Thornton said.<\/p>\n
Having grown from backpacking to a A$1bn annual business, its own footprint is becoming significant. This year the firm is launching Timor-Leste, or East Timor. Thornton said: \u201cSome customers have done 30 to 40 trips, so they\u2019re often looking for places that they haven\u2019t been able to travel to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about overtourism, Thornton said: \u201cWe\u2019re definitely worried about it.\u201d Intrepid tries to advertise the less visited destinations, he added. \u201cWe call it the not-hot list \u2013 drawing out the places where the infrastructure is available and the locals are willing to welcome travellers.\u201d<\/p>\n
People hold a placard that reads \u2018tourism yes, but not like this\u2019 during a protest against overtourism and housing prices in Mallorca in 2024. Photograph: Jaime Reina\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Rising tourist taxes around the world underline that many places feel they have more than enough visitors. For Wilson, it is \u201cgrossly unfair\u201d; destinations such as Mallorca, he said, \u201cbuilt enormous economic positions on the back of mass tourism, and then pull up the bridge and put on an extra tax. All that does is go back to the days of travel being only for the rich.\u201d<\/p>\n
How many of the UK outbound travel industry remain in sufficient paid work to afford it may also be in question.<\/p>\n
Shaun Morton, the chief executive of On the Beach, laid off 20% of the Manchester-based online agency\u2019s staff this summer to \u201cautomate and streamline\u201d processes. He told delegates: \u201cYou\u2019ve got the technology, people, processes and you hold them all dear \u2026 We just started to ask not how do we get 10% more out of that, but how do we get 10 times that, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that \u201cvery bright people with a sharp head with technology\u201d probably would keep their jobs longest, but acknowledged: \u201cThey\u2019re worried, because they can see a little bit further ahead than everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a year marked by extreme heat and war sending fuel prices skywards, British travel executives hoped for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-648421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}