This summer’s wildfires across Europe were all the more remarkable for touching territories which have rarely encountered such disaster.
In the UK, fires in areas including South Wales, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire and West Midlands created unprecedented damage, affecting homes and businesses. Meanwhile, record wildfires in southwestern France stoked by pyrocumulonimbus clouds saw hundreds of thousands of residents and holidaymakers evacuated.
Over a thousand tourists and locals were evacuated from fires in Croatia, while a fleet of small boats had to rescue holidaymakers from two resorts in Greece. Forest fires in Sicily provoked more scrambled evacuations.
In the prefecture of Gironde, in southwest France, mixed messages following days of disaster left would-be visitors in a state of flux. Regional leader Sophie Brocas advised tourists to stay away in the wake of the fires; French commerce minister, Serge Papin, told holiday-makers he was “hopeful” that conditions would improve allowing their return.
Unsurprisingly, after some 70 campsites in the region were shut down due to fires, France’s sophisticated network of camping grounds has come under renewed scrutiny. With over 11,000 registered camping sites, the country is Europe’s leader for the segment by some degree. However, a propensity for rural and forest locations plus wooden chalet and yurt structures on glamping sites suggest the sector faces increasing vulnerability.
It is an important consideration for institutional capital which has been diversifying into outdoor accommodation with increased frequency. Last year the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) bought a significant minority stake in European Camping Group (ECG) which operates 450 sites across eleven European countries and is considered a leading player in France, Italy, Spain and Croatia.
Counting the cost
The big picture for tourism’s stakeholders – governments, real estate owners and hotel operators – also remains somewhat grim. While property owners are contemplating rising damage and repair costs, they are also revaluating due diligence practices and risk metrics for future investments. “A big focus is on the insurability of assets with climate change,” says an institutional investor with a significant hospitality strategy, speaking under conditions of anonymity. “After California, we’re monitoring big events that might ultimately lead to properties becoming uninsurable.”
Those that lobby governments and legislators for more robust support are all too aware that the long-term fixes are anything but fast or easy. Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service, has linked the rising frequency of heatwaves to human-led carbon dioxide emissions. With Europe’s legislators increasingly dragging their feet on net zero pathways, the evidence that Europe has been warming faster than any other region over the past 30 years is chilling. “The only solution to climate change is to cut emissions to net zero, and the tools to achieve that are the same renewable technologies which shift our energy system towards reliance on free and abundant wind and sun,” says Gareth Redmond-King, head of international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
Real estate’s response
Yet there are some urban solutions available to policymakers which are relatively less costly and more immediate in impact, according to Chris Cummings, director, sustainable design, at Savills. “The spaces between buildings are equally important in managing rising temperatures and creating healthier urban environments,” he observes. “Green infrastructure, including trees, parks and water features, can help cool cities, while more permeable streetscapes, shaded public spaces and a mix of building heights can improve airflow and reduce heat build-up.”
At a property level, there are several things that owners can do. Sarah Brayshaw, principal climate risk and resilience consultant at Savills, notes that “climate resilience is increasingly being added to reporting benchmarks such as GRESB, where the Climate Resilience Indicator encourages wider adoption of climate resilience measures, informed by physical climate risk assessment and scenario analysis”. She observes that building certifications such as BREEAM require evidence of building level practices to manage potential exposures to physical climate risks. “To stay ahead, real estate must embed climate resilience into every stage of the property lifecycle,” she adds.
Traveller choices
Meanwhile, traveller footfall across Europe is likely to alter as trends such as “coolcations” – a preference for cooler destinations in summer – pick up pace. The Nordic countries, for example, are increasingly benefitting from tourists targeting mountain air in mid-summer or a sporty escape. “Dual seasonality” is also a factor, according to Jasmine Hopkins of Savills global residential development consultancy, who describes destinations benefitting from “husky sledding, snowmobiling, and ice fishing in winter; hiking, lake fishing, and mountain biking in summer”.
Yet all is not lost for the regions of Europe experiencing fierce summer temperatures. Oliver Broad, managing director of travel agent RB Collection, notes that “seasons are extending, with destinations such as Crete, Cyprus, Turkey and southern Spain keeping hotels open much later into the autumn”. He adds that “airlines are following suit, with increased flight schedules well beyond the traditional summer window”.
Marbella in southern Spain “provides an annual 328 days of sunshine and average winter temperatures of 18.5°C”, notes Knight Frank’s Nicola Christinger, who works in international sales. She says that British, Belgian and Scandinavian buyers continue to target second homes in the area.
Longer seasons and temperate winters in key destinations are also likely to support sales of branded residences, a sector which has grown by 180 percent globally in the last decade. Savills data shows that there are currently 740 branded residential schemes worldwide, with pipelines set to grow by more than 60 per cent in the next five years. The segment has increasingly invested in environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes in recent years, to align better with the aspirations of wealthy owners. This includes strategies such as passive design to reduce heat demand, zero carbon onsite energy production and smart lighting and HVAC systems.
And while the hospitality sector rarely wins every battle with guests to keep energy usage low, savvy operators are increasingly committing to small but incremental changes to fight the net zero war. Tech from UK-based firm Winnow performs AI-powered food waste tracking, which has been harnessed by the likes of Hilton, Accor, Marriott and Mandarin Oriental to date. The firm equips kitchens with connected hardware and AI that tracks what food is discarded, when, and why. Accor has over 200 hotels using Winnow worldwide, according to Coline Pont, the firm’s chief sustainability officer. “Through our collaboration with Winnow, we empower our chefs with data-driven insights to make conscious decisions every day,” she says.