Felicity Long
The international community has been slow to react to the migrant crisis in Europe, given the historic numbers -- more than 100,000 in July alone -- of desperate travelers risking everything for a chance to live in safety and freedom in Europe and beyond.
But the image of a drowned 3-year-old Syrian toddler on a beach in the resort town of Bodrum, Turkey, that went viral last week seems to have galvanized public sympathy and stressed the need for an urgent solution.
While the EU grapples with how to handle the ongoing catastrophe, different countries are handling the flood of migrants in different ways. Uncomfortable scenes of barbed-wire fences, police dogs and refugee camps are slowly being offset by news of more altruistic, proactive assistance from countries like Iceland and Germany, with volunteers using social media to get the word out.
And just this week, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron promised that the U.K. will accept "thousands" more Syrians than originally planned, while Austria rolled out the welcome mat for beleaguered migrants being bussed in from Hungary.
What does all this mean to travelers planning to visit Europe in the coming months?
Because the situation is so fluid and has affected many parts of Europe, the answer is a moving target, and most industry experts I spoke to suggested that travel agents keep regular tabs on the situation.
Because of recent news of migrants trying to rush onto the Eurotunnel for passage to the U.K., causing hours-long delays for ticketed passengers, I reached out to Rail Europe for their input and received this reply: “Rail Europe recommends that travelers and travel agents continue to follow the situation closely to determine how it may impact train passengers in Europe. Heightened security may involve longer wait times at stations and passengers should be advised to arrive early.”
For up-to-date information on the scene in Calais, agents and travelers can monitor this government site.
Eurail Group suggested agents contact the local carriers in Europe for country-by-country rail news.
Anne-Laure Tuncer, U.S. director of Atout France, the France Tourism Development Agency, said, “Most migrants do not enter Europe primarily in or through France, and those who do, usually arrive in areas that are not well traveled.”
She added that French and German authorities are spearheading an initiative for a reform of the European system organizing the reception of refugees.
Another area of concern is Hungary, where I have heard anecdotal reports of travel delays on the highway between Vienna and Budapest as well as on local Hungarian trains.
Reka Hegedus, a customer service representative for MAV-START Railway Passenger Transport Co. in Hungary, confirmed that the international trains are up and running again toward Western Europe from Budapest Keleti railway station.
“The end of the immigrant crisis cannot be predicted, but the situation [at the rail station] has become much better by now,” Hegedus wrote in an email. “There is no problem with entering the train station. Budapest is quite safe now, just like Budapest Keleti station, due to the presence and strict control of the authorities. The employees of the railway company make every effort to rapidly restore the international traffic, but some minor disruptions [and] delays can occur.”
In Kos, Greece, where some 6,000 migrants have arrived from Turkey in the last two months, the solution for many visitors has been to avoid the island in favor of its neighbors. According to Trivago, searches for hotels on the island dropped by more than half in the last week of May, vs. the previous seven weeks, while demand for almost every other Greek island spiked by as much as two-thirds.
That said, Celestyal Cruises has been sailing to Kos for the past two seasons as part of its new weeklong Idyllic Aegean itineraries and will continue to do so in 2016, according to Kyriakos Anastassiadis, the company’s CEO, adding: “We are deeply moved by the current humanitarian crisis, and we support all European Union and international efforts to ease the burden of these people during these trying times.