Portugal and Greece climate perception, the most resilient to global warming among Mediterranean destinations

22.05.2024 - 11:53 / traveldailynews.com / Vicky Karantzavelou / Carlos Cendra

Mabrian data indicates that France, United Kingdom and United States are the most sensitive key outbound markets for this region to climate perception, showing the importance unveiling insights based on data to align travellers’ expectations with their actual experience and future demand.

MAO BALEARIC ISLANDS, SPAIN – Readiness and data insights to deal with climate change effects and its impact in destinations’ perception can make a difference when designing and executing promotional strategies, to ensure travellers’ expectation do not fall far from the actual experience. This is one of the main arguments Mabrian, the global travel intelligence company, brought to the Resilience Council panel, held during the latest edition of Arabian Travel Market.

Carlos Cendra, Mabrian’ Chief Marketing and Communications Officer joined this round table with Nikolaos Gkolfinopoulos, Head of Tourism at ICF; Alastair Crossley, Global Head of Travel Solutions at AXA; Ali Haider Director Middle East and Africa at Fragomen/Nomadic; and Elizabeth Maclean, Co-Managing Director at Herdwick Communications.

To address how resilience and visitors’ perception is key to build, protect, and project any destination reputation and brand image around the world, Mabrian used as an example the influence of climate change, in particular global warming, in the travellers’ perception of five competing Mediterranean countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Portugal), during summer 2023.

Mabrian featured data on Climate Perception Index (PCI by its acronym) for these Mediterranean destinations’ key source markets (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, United States, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark). The higher the index is, the more satisfied travellers are with the weather in the destination, as their expectations are being met. The aim was to provide context on the impact on the record high temperatures reached last summer, on a year that, according to European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, was the hottest ever, as warming is two times faster in Europe than the global average.

When analysing 2023 summer season, Portugal’s and Greece’s Climate Perception Index show the most consistent performance, thus a better perception in this regard among all source markets analysed. Portugal is the destination that has a better overall Climate Index Perception (90,8 points on average, of 100 possible), even though the summer heat has a clear effect, pushing the index down in July and August. Greece (88,8 points on average) is the only destination analysed with a more stable climate perception throughout the months studied.

Interestingly, not all destinations follow a uniform pattern: Turkey is a good example of showing a