The summer of 2022 has been the the recovery of tourist flows prior to covid and the return to the billing levels of 2019 for hotels, bars, restaurants and leisure, among others. An excellent balance that is partially diluted by the negative impact that high temperatures have had on the comfort levels of foreign travelers in Spain.
The latest data from the State Meteorological Agency, compiled by El País, point out that Spain has suffered 42 days of heat waves since June. Temperatures above 40 degrees for many hours of the day, which made it practically impossible for these travelers to do what they wanted to do: go out and be on the streets. An excessive heat that has turned against him. No one can predict that it was a punctual phenomenon and that it does not become something structural. Ldata analytics firm Mabrian has updated the climate perception index, which it carries out every year and in which it uses advanced natural language processing techniques, artificial intelligence and machine learning on millions of spontaneous tourist interactions captured on social networks in real time. “It allows identifying those tourist mentions related to the weather and its associated feeling, to understand when the weather in the destination is causing a variation in visitor satisfaction,” he emphasizes. Carlos Cendra, director of sales and marketing of Mabrian.
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The results show a drop in the satisfaction index in Spain, Greece or France and a rise in the United Kingdom. “If anyone thinks that very high temperatures are good news for sun and beach destinations, they are wrong. During heat waves we have seen a drop in traveler satisfaction during the warmer weeks. Time is one of the main reasons that determines a trip, avoiding very cold and very hot areas”, says Cendra. For this reason, it is essential that all operators adapt their offer to these new standards. “Online agencies and hotels should consider adding a filter through which people could know what the temperature is going to be at the destination on the dates they want to go. They should also think about offering detailed information about air conditioning, shaded areas or air conditioning on their web pages so that people can have that information when making a reservation,” he says. Matthew Chapman, Chief Technology Officer at Vibe, one of the largest technology providers in the hospitality industry.
If climate change continues to harden the climatic conditions in Spain in summer, “tourist nationalism” could occur. This phenomenon took place in the summer of 2018, with unusual temperatures in destinations traditionally cold in summer, such as Germany or the United Kingdom.. In this situation, the authorities of each country called on tourists to spend their vacations in the country where they resided because there was no longer any difference with respect to the climate of the great Mediterranean destinations, such as Spain, Italy or Greece. Thousands of citizens chose to spend their vacations at home.
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