How the Mediterranean crises are affecting tourists' summer plans

Greece in turmoil, Tunisia reeling from terrorism, France in the grip of a port blockade, Italy grappling with migrant tragedies out at sea.

The Mediterranean crises are taking their toll on tourism as the peak summer period looms, but experts think the knock-on effect on each country will be very different.

Thousands of planned trips to Tunisia have already been cancelled by Europeans aghast at the scenes of last week’s terror attack in Sousse.

Greece is also facing a slew of cancellations as holidaymakers fret about shortages of cash and other essentials. But Greece could yet survive the summer with its tourism industry relatively unscathed, experts say, while other countries, including Britain, might profit from the Mediterranean mayhem.

It is a sensitive subject. As migrants risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean, and with Greece on the brink of financial chaos, the leisure plans of more well-heeled Europeans can understandably seem trivial. In May, for example, reports of British tourists angered at “disgusting” migrant encampments on the Greek island of Kos prompted accusations of insensitivity.

But it is also an important subject, not least for the nations being visited. The tourism industry contributes about 16% of Greece’s GDP and almost 20% of its jobs, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. In Tunisia, where a jihadi gunman last week killed 38 people, 30 of them British, the figures are 15% and 14%.

The attack is, not unexpectedly, having a major impact on people’s plans to travel to Tunisia. The one element of hope is, experts say, that tourism industries can recover more quickly than one might expect.

All around Europe, the package holiday firms that send the bulk of western visitors to Tunisia are offering people alternative destinations. In 2014 about 425,000 Britons visited Tunisia, almost as many as the 450,000 seen before the tumult of the Arab spring in 2011.

On average, 400,000 Germans go to Tunisia each year, according to Torsten Schäfer from the German Travel Association (GTA), but the Sousse attack will reduce that number this year. “As an aftershock, approximately 30% to 40% of people who were due to go in the next few days have chosen to cancel their holidays or rebook to travel to another country,” he said.

It was difficult to predict when the tourists would return, he added: “I’ve never seen such a brutal attack on a beach for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure if people will forget that in the short term, but I hope for the young democracy this will happen because it was very stable.”

But Hidde van der Louw, from Dutch-based travel group Sundio, said Tunisia could look at the example of Egypt, where tourism numbers have risen again following the immediate post-Arab spring tumult in 2012 and 2013.

“It’s amazing how fast people forget,” he said. “In some cases it’s weeks or months, but it always comes back. It’s all about what regions are offering and how they are developing – for example all-inclusive packages. Or it’s about the political or economic situation, but those are short term.”

The situation for Greece seems more mixed. Even as the nation is on the brink of exiting the eurozone, the country appears as popular a destination as ever, albeit with a definite wobble before Sunday’s referendum on austerity measures.

The UK travel industry group Abta said there had been very few calls from concerned customers, but Britons are being advised to take sufficient cash with them because of possible disruption to banks.

Some have even cancelled Tunisian holidays to head to Greece. Jess Stenson, a 19-year-old student from Birmingham was due to go with her boyfriend to a resort near the scene of the Tunisia attack in August, but took up holiday firm Thomson’s offer of a switch to Corfu.

“In terms of the crisis in Greece, I’m not going until the end of August and a lot can happen in that time,” she said. “Of course we will take all the government advice – take plenty of euros, be careful of theft.”

Greece will host about 250,000 Scandinavians this summer, according to Nordic tour operator Ving, part of Thomas Cook – 15% more than last year, the company says.

Charlotte Hallencreutz of Ving in Stockholm said the company was already taking bookings for Greece next summer. “The crisis is not affecting our guests, Greece is still in demand,” she said. “People who have booked later on this year still want to go. We are not seeing any change to our future bookings.”

Others are being more cautious. Richard Gussen from Corendon travel company said Greece had for years been among the most popular destinations for his Dutch customers, along with Turkey and Spain. “This year Greece was a bit more popular than Turkey, but in the last weeks we’ve seen less bookings for the high season and instead there’s been an increased demand for Spain and Turkey,” he said. “There haven’t been any cancellations, but for new bookings, people are waiting to see what happens this Sunday and what the situation is.”

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Such caution appears to be growing. The head of the Greek tourist industry association, Andreas Andreadis, previously said there was no crisis in the country’s tourism industry but conceded this week that the referendum and week-long closure of banks had seen hotel bookings dive by 50,000 a day.

Nonetheless, Schäfer from the GTA said he expected more German people to visit Greece this year than the record 2.5m from 2014. “We don’t see any change in booking behaviour because people know there’s a crisis in the financial system. On the islands, everything is fine and working. There are lots of people who have been there multiple times and go back every year because they know the weather will be the same, the hospitality is the same and the food is the same.”

Thomas Wilde, who runs a German travel PR company, said chaos was seen as a relative concept: “There is a tendency for people to go where they feel secure. In Greece, it’s relatively secure and people calculate that there are no terror attacks and they are going to be able to get petrol and access healthcare if needed for their children – the problems are all to do with money; there’s no fear of death.”

And what of the British? “With the exchange rate very much in favour of sterling, we are positive France will remain a favourite this summer,” said Marine Catalogna from Atout France, the country’s tourism agency, shrugging off ugly recent scenes in Calais that have threatened UK holidaymakers’ passage to the country.

However, with all the uncertainty, one much-touted holiday phenomenon looks like it might be set for a sudden boom: the staycation.

The Canal & River Trust says its members are reporting bumper booking figures this week. One, ABC Boat Hire, the largest canal boat hire operator in the UK, has seen a 44% increase in bookings compared with the same period last year.

Upmarket camping holiday firm Canopy & Stars, meanwhile, says its bookings more than doubled on 2014 levels over a recent 10-day period

Nadejda Popova, a travel analyst at Euromonitor International, said there were 132m domestic tourism trips in Britain last year and that was expected to increase again. As well as difficulties elsewhere, she noted, there was a much more prosaic reason for this as well: stagnant salaries and a desire to save money.