Rhodes heading for record season despite fire disaster in summer
Published: Friday, Nov 10th 2023, 10:20
Back to Live Feed
The vacation island of Rhodes is heading for a record tourism season this year despite the fire disaster in the summer. The devastating forest fires in July, which raged for two weeks and forced the largest evacuation operation in Greece's recent history, only resulted in a dent in the tourism industry's balance sheet.
Rhodes' booking figures this year are at the same level as in 2022, says Aage Dünhaupt, Head of Communications at the travel group Tui, during a media trip to the Greek island. And 2022 was the best year ever in terms of bookings.
Sales should even exceed the record year of 2022, says Dünhaupt in an interview with the news agency AWP. This is because people still have a great desire to travel after the pandemic and are spending more money on their vacations or booking longer vacations than before.
Without the fire, bookings would be 2 to 3 percent higher than the record year 2022, Dünhaupt estimates. With a market share of over 30 percent, Tui is the largest tour operator on Rhodes, which counted 2.6 million tourists last year. This makes Rhodes the second largest Greek tourist island after Crete, according to Tui manager Evangelos Georgiou.
Unpredictable fire
The fire broke out in the interior of Rhodes in mid-July and was initially contained by the fire department after days of fighting. But then the wind changed unexpectedly and drove the flames towards villages and hotels on the coast in the south-east of the island. The flames came within a few kilometers of the world-famous tourist village of Lindos with its white houses and the ancient acropolis once used as a knight's castle.
Within a few hours, 19,000 tourists and locals had to be evacuated in a hurry. Around 3,000 people had fled to the beaches and were taken to safety by boat and ship to towns further south. From there, they were transported by bus along the roads in the unaffected west of the island to the north, where they were accommodated in hotels or even with locals.
The fire came very quickly, say two hotel managers who had to evacuate their facilities near the resort of Kiotari, speaking to journalists from Switzerland and Austria. Because the blaze was so huge, it created its own microclimate, which made it very difficult to calculate where the fire would turn next.
The bosses of the two Mitsis hotels, Evangelinos Evangelatos and Stavros Vlachos, say that 2500 guests had to be evacuated. The most difficult thing was not to forget anyone in the two extensive complexes.
Lucky
"We were lucky" - you often hear this phrase when those affected talk about the dramatic events. There were no fatalities and not a single person was injured. "We didn't even have to apply a bandage," says Vlachos.
They were also lucky that the whole thing happened during the day. "Everyone was up and about; we didn't have to wake anyone up," say Vlachos and Evangelatos. And everyone followed the instructions of the staff and the authorities.
The one Mitsis Hotel only suffered minor damage. The water pipes, which were made of plastic, melted. And some palm trees were damaged by the heat, says Vlachos. That also seems like a miracle: the bushes on the other side of the street from the hotel burned down.
At the other Mitsis hotel, the air conditioning systems were destroyed by the ash. Discussions are still ongoing with the insurance companies as to who will pay for the damage, say the two managers.
Vlachos and Evangelatos say that of the 100 or so hotels in the area affected by the fire, only three were so badly damaged that they will not reopen until next year.
Fire roller not in tourist centers
Tui communications manager Dünhaupt also speaks of luck: the fire did not happen in the tourist centers of the island. As a result, the departure of vacationers to Rhodes was stopped for a week and the evacuees from the south were accommodated in hotels in the north of the island.
The village of Akslipiio in the interior of the island was also lucky: the trees on the hills were burnt down all around. But only three or four houses were destroyed by the flames, according to villager Kostas, who is working on repairing the fire damage at a hotel on the coast.
During those dramatic hours, the hotel staff left the hotel to protect their own houses in the village and fight the flames there. When the fire got close, the police advised: "Get out, otherwise you'll burn!".
However, the vast majority of Asklipiio villagers stayed and protected their own homes with garden hoses. The handful of residents who left lost their homes, says Kostas. In contrast to the hotels, no insurance paid for the private homes. There is also no help from the state, says Kostas.
Hotels quickly booked out again
Tourists were not deterred by the fire disaster: a good week later, the two Mitsis hotels reopened, say their managers. And another ten days later, the two resorts were already fully booked again.
"People forget quickly," says Tui spokesperson Dünhaupt. Some have simply postponed their vacation in Rhodes for a few weeks. Others have specially rebooked their vacations to Rhodes to support the economy of the fire-stricken island, say the two hotel managers Vlachos and Evangelatos. Tourism accounts for 85 percent of Rhodes' economic output. The booking situation for next year is already good again.
According to the Rhodes Hotel Association, bookings for 2024 are already up to 40 percent higher than this year. And Tui has even increased flights to Rhodes from Central and Northern Europe.
And the charred plants are also showing signs of life again: There are already green shoots emerging from the burnt trunks.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic