The recent fires in Greece have ruined the holidays of thousands of tourists this year. Many were those who had to evacuate. To erase this bad memory, the Greek government has taken a big decision: holidaymakers forced to flee the island of Rhodes will be able to return next year for “a week of free vacation”, the Greek Prime Minister announced on Wednesday August 2. “The Greek government will offer a free week’s vacation in Rhodes next spring or autumn to those who had to cut their vacations short due to the fires,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with British channel ITV. .
In the midst of a heat wave, a violent fire, triggered on July 18 and fanned by strong winds, ravaged in ten days nearly 17,770 hectares in the south of this very touristic island in the Aegean Sea (South-East), according to the European Copernicus Observatory (EMS). About 20,000 people, mostly tourists, had to be evacuated, especially during the night of July 23, according to Athens. The firefighters had initially mentioned 30,000 evacuations.
The German group TUI, world number one in tourism, and the British company Jet2 had suspended their flights to Rhodes before transporting their aircraft empty to evacuate the affected tourists. Fearing repercussions on this driving sector of the country’s economy, Greek tour operators recently launched a social media campaign called “Rhodes is safe” to entice tourists to visit the island. . “Rhodes is now more welcoming than ever, it has returned to normal,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis assured ITV.
Greece went through the longest heat wave for a month of July at the end of July with temperatures of over 40°C in many places, according to the National Observatory of Athens. Multiple fires then broke out, especially on another very touristic island, Corfu (North-West) where some 2,500 people had to be evacuated.
