War prompts Europeans to switch holidays away from eastern Mediterranean | Travel & leisure
Vacationers planning to visit the Eastern Mediterranean this summer are shifting their trips west and to the Caribbean due to the US-Israeli war against Iran, travel companies said.
As the region around the Middle East deals with flight cancellations and airspace closures, travelers from the UK and mainland Europe are increasingly changing holiday destinations from Cyprus, Turkey and Greece to Italy, Spain, Malta and Croatia.
Tui, Europe’s largest holiday operator, said demand for holidays in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cape Verde this summer had risen sharply in recent days as customers preferred “familiar, easy-to-reach destinations”.
“Whilst we have seen some cancellations in affected areas, these are currently outweighed by customers choosing to change their plans,” Tui manager Neil Swanson said.
Jonathon Woodall-Johnston, of holiday agency Hays Travel, which took over some of Thomas Cook’s collapsed high street stores, added that demand was growing particularly strongly for trips to Italy, Malta and Croatia.
They said more people were looking across the Atlantic for summer holidays to avoid travel disruptions.
“We are seeing particularly strong demand for our direct long-haul flights to the Caribbean, particularly the Dominican Republic and Jamaica,” Swanson said.
Mark Duguid, of Surrey-based holiday operator Kuoni, said interest in the Caribbean was “off the charts” for trips in the coming weeks.
“Everything is compressed,” he said. “We’ve seen huge increases in flight prices because seats available are limited; we’re talking about seats increasing by as much as £1,000 per person for economy seats, causing holidays to be taken off the market for many customers.”
A week ago, the cheapest return flights from London to Antigua and Barbuda in the last week of March were £720, according to Google’s price tracking data. This figure has since risen by 27% to £917.
It comes as the tourism industry begins to count the cost of conflict in the Middle East.
Shares in online holiday agency On the Beach fell as much as 13% on Thursday after it suspended its annual profit target due to the “unknown” duration and outcome of the war and its long-term impact on travel. He told investors there had already been a “significant slowdown” in bookings to destinations such as Türkiye, Cyprus and Egypt.
On the Beach said there was also a slowdown in bookings to Greece, where tourism is the cornerstone of the country’s economy. However, Tui said there had been strong demand for Greek holidays in recent days.
Shares of other travel operators have fallen since the US-Israeli attack on Iran; Shares in easyJet and Jet2 fell 16% and 10% respectively.
Rival online agency Loveholidays, which was tipped to be the London Stock Exchange’s first major listing in 2026, is now reportedly preparing to postpone its IPO, according to the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, the Middle East’s tourism industry has been decimated by conflict, with the State Department advising against travel to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
British Airways has canceled its seasonal Abu Dhabi route from Heathrow until “later this year” and low-cost carrier Wizz Air told Bloomberg it was reallocating around half of its Middle East capacity, or about 25 to 30 flights per day, to European leisure and urban destinations such as Croatia, Spain, Portugal and Italy by September.
The disruption means the Middle East’s tourism sector is losing $600 million (£448 million) a day in visitor spending, according to estimates by global trade body the World Travel and Tourism Council.
Before the conflict, the organization estimated international visitors would spend about $207 billion in the Middle East this year.
The region’s tourism industry has grown rapidly in recent years, and some of its most famous landmarks and hotels have been affected by the war. Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, and the wreckage of a captured drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel, Burj Al Arab, and Dubai’s international airport.
