Hurricane Irma: As holidaymakers complain, spare a thought for the locals

The industry of human happiness, as travel likes to consider itself, has been immersed in a fair amount of grief this week.

At Manchester airport on Thursday, I talked to passengers arriving from Cayo Coco. This low-lying sandbar off the north coast of Cuba is sprinkled with all-inclusive resorts and connected by a 17-mile-long causeway to the mainland.

You can understand that anyone on the resort island would find the approach of Hurricane Irma, battering her brutal way along the northern fringes of the Caribbean, alarming, to say the least.

The holidaymakers told a common story: That they got more information about the march of the meteorological menace from watching foreign news networks and talking to family at home than they did from their holiday reps. What communication they did get from their tour operator was often confused and contradictory. Were they going to be evacuated to the mainland? Was a fleet of planes flying out to rescue them and bring them home? Or were they expected to sit it out as 200mph-plus gusts tore through their holiday complex?

When it appeared that it was to be the last option, one man sent an email to Theresa May asking for help. Other holidaymakers sought advice and succour from the British Embassy in Havana. And a family set off on a six-hour taxi journey to the Cuban capital to board a flight to Madrid, then to Amsterdam, and finally home around a day later and thousands of pounds poorer.

Among the alarmed holidaymakers, there was a palpable sense of outrage that more is not being done to address their concerns. It’s natural to empathise with travellers feeling anxious and abandoned. Eventually they were moved to the mainland.

Yet having visited both Cayo Coco and the nearby towns and villages on the mainland, I know which side of the bahia I would prefer to be on: the tourist enclave, with sturdily built, modern hotels, rather than the much flimsier dwellings of the locals.

At the risk of sounding harsh, I wonder if some of the expectations of the holidaymakers who have chosen to visit the Caribbean at the height of the hurricane season are misplaced?

In return for taking a risk (perhaps calculated, perhaps not) on the weather, they will have got a pretty good deal on the trip – typically around half the price charged from December to March, the best time for a visit to Cuba.

None of the distressed tourists would anticipate being caught in the most vicious storm ever recorded, but the Natural Disasters section of the Foreign Office travel advice for the island begins: “The hurricane season in Cuba normally runs from June to November.” Accordingly, the weather is unlikely to comprise uninterrupted clear skies and calm air.

As Hurricane Irma wreaks devastation and wrecks homes on her westward journey of destruction, both travellers and the travel industry should be learning lessons.

For holidaymakers averse to stormy weather, allow me to recommend the Mediterranean. The Greek islands are warm and serene in September, closer to home and easier to leave in a hurry than a rickety communist republic in lockdown.

Holiday companies must be prepared to act swiftly and generously when risk rises. British Airways sent out a Boeing 777 to bring people back from Antigua before Irma arrived, and was the first big UK airline to put in place a “travel waiver”: offering passengers a range of alternatives rather than flying to the danger zone

In a rapidly developing emergency, things will always go wrong, and BA has not escaped criticism. But the airline has shown the right attitude, and I hope its rivals will choose to emulate in future.

Meanwhile, making informed decisions remains the responsibility of the traveller.