With record-high temperatures worldwide, is this the end of the summer vacation as people know it?

UNITED STATES – You cannot escape the orange. That is what travellers this summer have been reckoning with – swathes of tangerine, traffic cone and burnt sienna on maps indicating record-high temperatures around the globe.

Four concurrent heat domes from the southern United States to East Asia descended on millions. Phoenix residents endured 31 days of 43 deg C temperatures. Italians in more than a dozen cities are under extreme weather warnings. And in South Korea, at least 125 people were hospitalised for heat-related conditions at the World Scout Jamboree.

In Florida, it got so bad in June that Ms Jacki Barber, 50, a clinical social worker and eighth-generation Floridian, cancelled a beach trip to St Augustine. “The water temperature was, like, 32 deg C,” she said. “We’re used to hurricanes ruining plans, tropical storms, even just bad thunderstorms. But I don’t recall ever looking at anyone and saying, ‘It’s too hot to go to the beach.’”

As the summer travel engine kicked into high gear in 2023, it was not just the scorching heat affecting carefully laid plans. There were also fires, floods, tornadoes and hailstorms.

Some 20cm of rainfall left parts of Vermont coping with catastrophic floods. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of tourists, had to evacuate islands in Greece because of wildfires. The popular music festival Awakenings cancelled a date in the Netherlands because of concern over hail, lightning and thunderstorms.

Increasingly dangerous weather now hits classic summer destinations, with conditions growing more erratic, expensive and deadly.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States has experienced four climate disasters since May, each causing more than US$1 billion (S$1.36 billion) in damages. The National Park Service estimates that more visitors have died of heat-related causes since June than in an average year. The indirect toll is almost certainly higher: A recent study found that summer heat waves killed 61,000 people in Europe in 2022.

For decades, science has confirmed that unabated climate change will cause more misery and hardship, and cost millions of lives in the years to come. People are getting a taste of the results this summer. Their relationship with travel has reached a tipping point. What happens when they cannot just vacation through it?

Strong demand, migrating patterns

Despite all the crises, global arrivals – the total number of tourists who cross a border – are projected to be up 30 per cent from 2022, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research division of the media company. The United Nations’ World Tourism Organisation reports that travel to Europe is now at 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Yet change is coming, whether or not cooler destinations have the room. The European Commission projects that tourism on the continent – already the world’s biggest tourist draw – will grow regardless of warming conditions, but that higher temperatures will migrate demand, sending more tourists to Northern Europe instead of the Mediterranean. Southern regions would lose nearly 10 per cent of their current summer tourists in one scenario.

But temperate destinations are confronting their own climate issues.

Tennis coach Avery Baldwin, 27, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, has regularly visited a small town in New Hampshire his whole life. Rain has pummelled the area this summer. A University of Massachusetts Amherst study found that more precipitation has fallen in New Hampshire every year in the past 10 years than the 20th-century average.

“It is definitely a frequent conversation topic,” Mr Baldwin said. Wet conditions make the usual activities, such as hiking, more treacherous and drive people indoors. He still plans to return this summer.

Some governments are implementing policies to reroute tourist traffic. China has committed to building large mountain resorts as part of a programme it calls “22 degree destinations” – 22 deg C being the optimal holiday temperature, according to China – designed to lure domestic tourists from cities like Shanghai and Beijing during the hottest months.

Who is looking out for the tourists?

To mitigate the heat in Paris, the Eiffel Tower has installed overhead mist makers and water stations for those waiting in line, according to Mr Patrick Branco Ruivo, the tower’s director-general. It has also moved more of its ticket sales to an online reservations system, which cuts down on wait times for visitors.

It is impossible to know the future of travel, but the cognitive dissonance of summer travel in a warming world is catching up to people.

Tragic headlines and statistics are prompting hard looks at the nature of tourism: who benefits and who gets to participate.

More people will find themselves confronting personal and increasingly tough decisions – and, like Ms Barber, perhaps will choose a less appealing but more comfortable option. “We just all stayed home and huddled in a room with the air conditioner on,” she said. NYTIMES