Major wildfires have ravaged parts of the popular Greek island destination of Rhodes, including the areas around several hotels, which has forced hotel guests to evacuate and cancel travel plans.
The destination is a warm weather spot for many European vacationers, especially British travelers.
The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office has not advised against travel to the islands, but some hotels have been closed by the fires and some package vacation firms have canceled trips.
The advice of the U.K. Foreign Office is important, as what it states officially affects insurance coverage.
Vacation package company TUI is one of Rhodes’ big tourism players.
Alice Preece, a press officer at TUI, said “teams in Rhodes have been working tirelessly to support customers impacted by the wildfires in southeastern parts of the island, and three dedicated flights brought our first customers safely back to the U.K. overnight.
“We have reps in all evacuation centers, and we’re aiming to get more people home from the affected areas as soon as we can,” she added. “We appreciate how distressing and difficult it’s been for those who have been evacuated and ask that they continue to follow the advice of the local authorities and keep in touch with our teams. We have canceled all outbound flights to Rhodes up to and including Friday, July 28, and have also canceled all outbound flights for customers traveling to impacted hotels up to and including on Sunday, July 30.”
Thomas Ellerbeck, group executive committee member at TUI, said in an accompanying statement that “as of [July 23], TUI has around 39,000 guests on the island, 7,800 of them directly affected by the situation. They have been relocated to safe places including hotels or shelters designated by the local authorities.”
TUI has its own in-house brand, TUI Blue, but its package vacations most often occupy rooms of partner hotels.
“Due to the volatile and challenging situation, and considering the impact on local communities being affected by evacuations, TUI will continue flight operations to [and] from Rhodes to bring customers home but has decided to cancel booked holidays to Rhodes,” Ellerbeck said.
Other vacation firms including Spain’s Hosteltur and the U.K.’s Thomas Cook have customers on Rhodes and are largely following the emergency model of other hotels, canceling some initial flights and packages but so far keeping later ones on schedule.
The Mitsis Group has five hotels on Rhodes — two in the zone affected by the wildfires and a further 15 hotels in Greece. Guests at its Mitsis Rodos Maris Resort & Spa and Mitsis Rodos Village Beach Hotel & Spa have been evacuated, and there are other hotels in the same situation.
The 401-room Sheraton Rhodes Resort and 354-room Eden Roc Resort are two hotels providing assistance and accommodation to displaced guests.
Corfu is another Greek island suffering from wildfires. The fires have also affected parts of the Greek mainland and are in part due to the heatwave covering most of Southern Europe.
Jochen Schaefer-Suren, CEO and founder of hotel fund IREMIS, said climate change increasingly will be a major factor in the composition of hotel loans, pricing and exits.
“Look at the fires from Rhodes. In Southern Spain, another example, there are disputes between the authorities and farmers over illegal water [wells]. Such incidents, I believe, might well see more immigration from the south of Europe to the north,” he said.
“There will be loans without a clear plan on climate change. In five to seven years, if you do not do anything, you might not be able to exit,” he added.
According to data from CoStar, the island of Rhodes has 15,654 total hotel rooms, including 4,054 internationally branded hotel rooms.
Independent hotels, many with contracts with package-vacation companies, make up approximately 75% of the total hotels in CoStar's database.