Telegraph: The popularity of the Mediterranean as a summer vacation destination will decline, it will be like Dubai in August

Negative trends are already visible

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Detail from Spain, Photo: Reuters
Detail from Spain, Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

All signs point to the fact that by the end of this century, the popularity of the Mediterranean as a summer vacation destination will drop drastically, due to the unbearable heat.

The Mediterranean will be like Dubai in August, warns the British newspaper Telegraph.

Negative trends are already visible. Greece, for example, recorded the earliest heat wave in the last two weeks, water reduction was in effect in parts of Catalonia during Easter due to a record drought, and in Sicily, where the mercury in the thermometer reached a record 2021 degrees Celsius in 48,8, these days, some B&B (bed and breakfast) facilities had to turn away guests due to water shortage, reports Jutarnji list.

Some argue that Europe has always experienced seasonal heat waves, but they have never been this intense and frequent.

According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the ten warmest years have been recorded since 2000. Last year, temperatures across Europe were one degree above average and two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Peter Stott, former head of the Met Office's climate monitoring, predicts that temperatures in Europe will soon cross the threshold of 50 degrees Celsius.

"It will happen first in the areas closest to the Mediterranean, because there the influence of the hot air from North Africa is strongest," Stott warned.

An expert in meteorology at the University of Reading, Rosie Mamat, said that this summer could bring more record temperatures. And with their growth, southern Europe will be the most threatened.

The heat-related death rate on the Old Continent has increased by 30 percent, and longer, hotter, and drier summers are causing droughts, which in turn are affecting agriculture and food production, damaging infrastructure, and destroying habitats. The Mediterranean Sea is warming faster than the global average, and it is predicted that it will rise by up to one meter by 2100.

Bearing in mind all the above, tourist destinations in the Mediterranean certainly have reason to worry, because their economies rely heavily on tourism, which accounts for more than 19,6 percent of GDP in Croatia, 18 percent in Greece, 12 percent in Spain and 10,5 .XNUMX percent in Italy.

Radek Novak from the agency "Intrepid Travel" said that they no longer organize hiking trips in Spain and Portugal during the hottest months.

"But we've added more out-of-season trips, in April and October, to make it easier for people to avoid extreme temperatures. We've also added winter trips to countries like Greece and Croatia," Novak said.

In the future, tourism will increasingly turn towards the colder north. A document from last year, commissioned by the EU, simulating different levels of warming and the impact on tourist movements, predicts a clear pattern in changes in tourism demand, with northern regions benefiting from climate change and southern regions facing a significant reduction in tourist demand.

This process is already underway. The CEO of German Tui, Sebastian Ebel, said that their company plans to invest more in package tours around the Polish Baltic Sea and in the Netherlands and Belgium.

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