After a record-hot summer with seemingly endless heat waves, European travelers are changing the way they travel. Moreover, they tend to book shorter and cheaper trips because of the symptoms of climate change. It will probably follow that international travelers might plan to head further north for their vacations in Europe.

European travelers choosing cooler destinations after heat waves

Climate change is having a direct effect on travel bookings as European travelers choose cooler countries in northern Europe. According to Dana Dunne, CEO of eDreams Odigeo, travel agents are seeing major changes. This comes especially after the record heat of last summer led to wildfires across Europe.

While Dunne did say the majority of travelers are still booking the most popular Mediterranean destinations, it is still having a huge impact on bookings.

“We see a shift, with those [cooler] places seeing very material increases during the hottest part of the year,” Dunne said.

The CEO noted that cooler areas of northern Spain saw a sharp increase in bookings during the heat waves. Bookings for Bilbao increased by 120 percent, Oviedo by 65 percent and bookings in La Coruña rose by 79 percent. The company also saw increased bookings in the cooler, northern European countries, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Travel operator Tui forecasted a rise in bookings in Northern European countries last year and noted that the normal summer season in the Mediterranean lengthened as the warm weather continued.

Mediterranean destinations not under threat

According to Dunne, travel companies don’t consider the changing travel choices a threat to businesses in Mediterranean countries. He said that while 2022 and 2023 were extremely hot in southern Spain, the country remains one of the top destinations for European travelers. However, travelers are choosing cheaper and shorter trips due to high inflation. Dunne explained that people continued to travel, but due to the poor economy, they have cut down their trips rather than cancel them.

eDreams noted that average spending per trip on their website was “significantly lower” than before the pandemic. In fact, shorter trips proved to be popular all along with travelers still wishing to travel to Europe.

According to data from Advantage Travel Partnership, a group of independent travel agents, the average length of vacations last summer was 7.6 nights, which is down from 10 prior to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the change to booking cheaper vacations still led to airlines and hotel operators making increased profits. Reportedly, in the UK, airlines saw a busy year-end with 2.9 million people traveling over the Christmas holidays. This was up from 1.4 million travelers in the previous year. Moreover, budget airline easyJet enjoyed its busiest Christmas Day in 2023, with 542 flights across Europe.

While Paris leads in worldwide European flight bookings ahead of the Paris Olympics in 2024, Europe will see major changes this year.

American readers, are you changing your European travel plans in 2024 to try to avoid major heat waves? Let us know by dropping a comment below.