Popular holiday destinations may no longer be safe as climate change intensifies extreme heat events
Over the last few weeks, the Northern Hemisphere has seen devastating wildfires and other extreme heat events wreak havoc in tourist hotspots during their busiest times.
Major tourist drawcards such as the Acropolis in Athens have been closed, and the Greek Island of Rhodes saw thousands of visitors forced to evacuate due to wildfires. Intense heatwaves in Southern Europe caused hundreds of deaths in Spain alone, and now fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui have tragically claimed the lives of at least 100 people, with the final death toll still to be tallied.
As the impacts of climate change worsen and intensify the conditions for these events, warmer destinations may no longer be safe holiday destinations. For countries that are economically dependent on the revenue that tourism brings, the threat of climate change is existential, unless both tourists and tourism operators can radically rethink their practices.
We’re joined by Dr. Susanne Becken, Professor in Sustainable Tourism at Griffith University, to discuss further.
