The notion of Gromov hyperbolicity was introduced by Gromov in the setting of geometric group theory [G1], [G2], but has played an increasing role in analysis on general metric spaces [BHK], [BS], [BBo], [BBu], and extendability of Lipschitz mappings [L]. In this theory, it is often additionally assumed that the hyperbolic metric space is proper and geodesic (meaning that closed balls are compa...