Have wildfires and heatwaves changed holidays in Europe for good? | BBC News

Well, to climate change now, as wildfires burn across Europe, the question of how the continent adapts to the impact of a warm wing temperature and how much it will cost is coming into focus. Well, one politician who knows all about this challenge is

the mayor of Freetown in Sierra Leone, where devastating mudslides killed more than a thousand people in 2017. Well, since then, Ivonne Akiya has implemented many schemes, including tree planting in response, and she's been speaking to my colleague, Luessa Bureak, for this week's talking business.

>> We're sitting in London today, and it's a coolish day, but I was here in June and you had temperatures of 40°. Now, I I make that I bring that point up because it's important for us to to not see to

no longer even attempt to see this as a farway problem. I can tell you what we're experiencing, but I think what's really important for viewers to hear is that this is no longer an isolated crisis from Europe here, fires

raging in Spain, in France. So, this is a global crisis, but it needs global and local solutions. Well, so how is our changing climate impacting how we travel?

Well, I got the view from Dr. Suzanne Eti from Intrepid Travel. >> No, we're definitely seeing um changes happening um because those wildfires or flat events or heat waves that we have seen are really having an impact on our trips, but

also really changing the way people do their holidays. So we have seen really a move away from southern Europe in the peak season but also really kind of seeing more customers selecting to travel during the shoulder season. So say May or September and so that's actually around

a 17% increase. But we're also seeing destinations like cooler destination like Northern Europe but also Iceland really increasing um interest for customers to travel to those regions. And so what do local travel businesses do because whole

economies particularly in Spain for example which is very reliant on tourism are set up around this summer holiday season. Yeah. No. So um it's definitely we have to recognize that climate

change is no longer a future business rest because it's actually an operational reality. So it's really important for businesses to first of all to reduce its impact but also build that resistance and then it's about helping people including our suppliers and customers

navigating this changing world in a safe and responsible way >> and is there an opportunity as you say northern Europe now seems quite appealing for for some tourists because of the cooler temperatures. Are we going to see a situation where the Mediterranean

is going to be actually sort of north of the Mediterranean somewhere in the Scandinavian countries where temperatures are cooler and perhaps that's where tourists want to kind of spend their summer holidays? >> I think we definitely what we see from our data

is that um customers are already traveling to cooler destinations but the most important place is always that um travelers need to stay informed. um safety comes first and kind of really to decide where's the best location for them at the time of

booking >> and sound like were people thinking about traveling over the summer clearly you know we've had wildfires in France and Spain this week should they be thinking about this before booking their travel in terms of insurance what kind of financial guarantees because lots of people have had to

cancel holidays as a result >> yeah no I think that's That's a really good point that you're raising here. So, um it's definitely always important um to to take out your travel insurance. We're definitely expecting also that the cost of those are

likely to go up just because we're seeing more and more incidents happening. But most important, I think for me it's always comes down to three points is to stay informed um to check um what's happening on the ground.