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VOLCANO FLIGHT CHAOS

TOURISM

Thousand of Swedish charter tourists stranded

At least 10,000 Swedish charter travellers have been stranded in far-flung destinations with no hope of returning home until Sunday at the earliest as a cloud of volcanic ash paralyses air traffic across Europe.

Thousand of Swedish charter tourists stranded
Lottie Knutson

Tour operator Fritidsresor said it was seeking alternative modes of transport to bring its customers back to Sweden after a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland forced airspace closures across much of Europe, with Scandinavia especially hard hit.

“Fritidsresor alone has 4,000 passengers who are stranded, and it’s fairly evenly spread among the other travel operators,” said Fritidsresor’s communications director Lottie Knutson.

“Nor is there any sign of the situation improving over the weekend. The number of people stranded is growing day by day.”

She added that the figure of 10,000 stranded charter tourists was a rough estimate based on the market share held by the respective Swedish operators.

A number of Fritidsresor’s customers travelling home from Thailand are now stuck in Cyprus, while tourists returning from Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, have come no further than Majorca.

“In order to help them we are of course looking at boat transportation. We have also rented and bought almost thirty buses which are standing at the ready, mainly in Athens.

“We’re also looking at trying to get flight clearance from Cyprus to Athens, or Trieste in northern Italy. From there we can then take those stranded back to the Nordic region in convoys of buses.”

Fritidsresor was also exploring the possibility of flying routes around the section of airspace that had been shut down.

“That’s only something a long distance machine can manage,” said Knutson.

She stressed however that no firm decisions had yet been taken as to how to bring charter travellers back to Sweden. She predicted that customers would be notified on Saturday afternoon at the earliest.

“No decisions have been made yet but, if required, the actual transportation will not happen until tomorrow [Sunday]. We’ll continue to work on the practicalities over the course of the day,” said Knutson.

Fritidsresor also calculated that around 10,000 people who had booked charter trips would not now be able to leave Sweden for their destinations.

“This in itself entails a lot of frustration and disappointment, especially since people are aware that trips are cheap now and they won’t get the same holiday for the same amount of money in high season.”

Knutson said it was difficult to calculate the financial cost for charter operators until the cloud has dispersed and normal service resumes.

“But at a rough estimate it is costing each major tour operator up to around 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) per day.”

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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