Warming climate increases summer tourism to Ireland
Travel agents say there's been a noticeable trend with a rising number of holidaymakers looking to avoid rising temperatures and extreme weather during the summer months in continental Europe.
Figures suggest more people are shying away from traditional sunspots in Greece and Spain and are instead opting for cooler destinations in northern Europe.
It follows a recent report from the World Meteorological Organization showing Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent.
Claire Doherty, Products and Operations Director with the Dublin based Travel Department, said what she has noticed is that there's "definitely a decline in people going to what would be considered the hotter European destinations during the summer months.
"There are two things happening. One is that they are still going to those areas. Those areas are not declining, but they are choosing to go in April and May or September, October, whereas previously May and September would have been quite busy.
"April and October are becoming just as busy as those now - it's what we call the shoulder periods.
"Then in the actual summer months for people travelling, there's more northern Europe ... places like Norway, which is up 50% year on year. Definitely people are going to cooler climates during those months," she adds.
This shift is also on the radar of travel writer Sarah Slattery, who says summer sun holidays have become cheaper, while previously unfamiliar destinations have come to the fore.
"Definitely, in the last year or two, there's been a big change," according to the founder of The Travel Expert website.
"I noticed only literally this week when I was doing my travel-deals posts that it was cheaper to go away in July than it was to go at the end of June, which really never happens.
"Another one I thought was really interesting was Bergen in Norway - there were never direct flights (from Dublin) to Bergen, and two years ago, they started twice weekly.
"Then last year they went three times weekly, and now they're four times weekly in the summer. That's telling in itself, you can see the demand is there to try new places and try the cooler climates."
Warming climate bringing more summer tourism to Ireland
However, it's not just the Nordics seeing a bump in tourism. Findings from research funded by Clare County Council and University of Limerick at the Cliffs of Moher suggest the warming climate is bringing more people to Ireland.
Ernesto Batista, a PhD student at the University of Limerick, was heavily involved in the research.
"Last year, during the summer, we were asking customers at the cliffs their perceptions about Ireland and what was the main motivation of coming to Ireland," he explains.
"Surprisingly, we found out that most of them were saying they were coming because of the temperatures and mild weather conditions. So especially customers were coming from Spain, from France, from countries in Europe that saw heatwaves in 2023.
"They were looking for a nicer experience in terms of weather conditions."
Though Mr Batista notes that "this is a very new phenomenon that we're actually seeing and there has been a long academic debate about it.
"It's just starting to happen now so more research needs to be conducted. Accordingly, more customers need to be surveyed to understand motivations, and how big an impact this will have."
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