Victoria Faucanie, chief marketing officer for the Paris-based hospitality group Beaumarly, recalled that when the company acquired the building housing Café Français over a decade ago, only one of its two dining rooms had air conditioning. At the time, the lack of cooling in the second room was rarely an issue; temperatures simply did not climb as high or persist as long as they do now.
“With these high temperatures, we are effectively closing half of the restaurant, which represents a significant revenue loss,” Faucanie said. “We realized we need air conditioning throughout the entire space.” She noted the restaurant is currently in negotiations to install a comprehensive system by next year.
Paige Dacanay, a 31-year-old visitor from San Diego spending the summer in Madrid, said she never leaves her rental apartment without a pair of fans—one electric, one manual—and has resorted to taking up to three cold showers on the most sweltering days. “I expected limited air conditioning, but actually living without it is extremely humbling,” she said. “You just have to get comfortable being hot.”
Renske Schuitmaker, 34, traveled from Nairobi to her native Netherlands during a late June heat wave. Pregnant at the time, she found her rental uninhabitable as temperatures soared into the 90s Fahrenheit and was forced to stay with air-conditioned relatives in Amsterdam. Dutch authorities reported that the June heat wave caused approximately 480 deaths across the country, where residential air conditioning remains uncommon.
Pamela Minucci, 64, and Robert Wilson, 65, visiting London from Connecticut for their daughter’s wedding, spent their days hunting for shaded seating. At one point, the couple settled into an air-conditioned pub broadcasting a cricket match for several hours. Asked if they were fans of the sport, Wilson laughed. “We were that day,” he said.
