“Climate emigration” and especially to the resorts of Turkey was offered to German retirees by the local association of travel agencies. According to Turkish media, “due to possible shortages and even higher energy prices next winter,” German travel agencies have offered to send older people on vacation to warmer places in the cold season so they can save on heating their apartments and houses. spending less Russian gas.
“Retirees can help decide to cope with rising prices and save energy,” said Maria Linnhoff, chairwoman of the German Association of Independent Travel Agencies (VUSR). The association offered older people the opportunity to travel to warmer countries in the winter for longer periods of time, with Turkey, Tunisia and the Spanish tourist island of Mallorca being named as potential destinations.
“The government could encourage more citizens, some of whom are already spending the winter in some of these places, by subsidizing such trips,” she added. She estimates that such a subsidy could be up to 500 euros, while the average cost of a long-term tour of Mallorca – 50 days, enough for most of the winter – is about 1,300 euros or 950 euros self-service.
“Retirees will also receive grants, we save gas for industry and support recreation areas,” said the head of the association in 7,000 travel agencies. However, it should be noted that politicians are not at all happy with the idea that retirees should not “freeze because of Putin, but go against Putin,” and partly on public money. Ralph Stegner of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) told Bild that this was a “crazy idea” that “clearly does not help solve the problems of our energy policy.” Politicians also estimated that the proposal would cost at least 10 billion euros, excluding rent and transportation costs. In addition, even among the “rich European retirees”, not many can afford the double burden of continuing to rent a home and live abroad at this time. Therefore, the idea is unfeasible from the point of view of politicians.
Instead, she is welcomed in Turkey. “Such a proposal will also be of great importance to Turkish tourism and will help create jobs,” the sector told Hürriyet. This is in fact the fulfillment of a long-standing dream of “market diversification”. They reminded that Germany was the best market for Antalya and last year became the second largest market in Turkey after Russia. About 3.1 million German tourists came to Turkey, which is 175.7% more than 1.1 million in 2020, and a record number of German income in 2015 reached 5.5 million people.