Tourists who had planned to visit the eastern Mediterranean this summer are shifting their trips to the west and the Caribbean because of the war between the United States and Israel against Iran, travel companies have said.
Travelers from the UK and mainland Europe are increasingly shifting their holiday destinations from Cyprus, Turkey and Greece to Italy, Spain, Malta and Croatia, as the Middle East region faces flight cancellations and airspace closures.
Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday operator, said demand had risen sharply in recent days for holidays to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cape Verde this summer, as customers opted for “familiar and easily accessible locations”.
“While we are seeing some cancellations in affected areas, they are currently being outnumbered by customers choosing to modify their plans,” said Neil Swanson, director of Tui.
Jonathon Woodall-Johnston, of Hays Travel, the holiday agency which took over some of the collapsed Thomas Cook stores, added that demand was growing particularly strongly for trips to Italy, Malta and Croatia.
They said more and more people were also looking across the Atlantic for their summer holidays, in a bid to avoid travel disruptions.
Swanson said: “We are seeing particularly strong demand for our long-haul direct flights to the Caribbean, especially to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.”
Mark Duguid, of Surrey-based holiday operator Kuoni, said interest in the Caribbean was “off the charts” for travel in the coming weeks.
“Everything has been squeezed out,” he said. “What we have seen are huge increases in flight prices, because the remaining seats are limited – we are talking about seats increasing by £1,000 per person for an economy seat, which then puts the price of the holiday out of market for many customers.”
A week ago, the cheapest return flights from London to Antigua and Barbuda during the last week of March were £720, according to Google price tracking data. This amount has since increased by 27% to £917.
It comes as the tourism industry begins to count the cost of the conflict in the Middle East.
Shares in On the Beach, the online vacation agent, fell as much as 13% on Thursday after it suspended its annual profit guidance due to the “unknown” duration and outcome of the war and its long-term impact on travel. It told investors it had already experienced a “significant slowdown” in bookings to destinations such as Türkiye, Cyprus and Egypt.
On the Beach said there had also been a slowdown in bookings for Greece, where tourism is the cornerstone of the country’s economy. However, Tui said he had seen strong demand for Greek holidays in recent days.
Shares in other travel operators have fallen since the US and Israeli attack on Iran, with easyJet and Jet2 shares falling 16% and 10% respectively.
Rival online agent Loveholidays, which had been planned to be the first major listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2026, is now preparing to delay its listing, according to the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, the Middle East’s tourism industry has been wiped out by the conflict, with the Foreign Office advising against travel to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
British Airways canceled its seasonal route to Abu Dhabi from Heathrow until “the end of this year,” and low-cost airline Wizz Air told Bloomberg it was reallocating about half of its Middle East capacity, around 25 to 30 daily flights, to European city and leisure destinations such as Croatia, Spain, Portugal and Italy until September.
The disruption means the Middle East tourism sector is losing $600m (£448m) a day in visitor spending, according to estimates by the World Travel and Tourism Council, the global trade body.
Before the conflict, the agency estimated that international visitors would spend around $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 sites and hotels have been affected by the war. Iran attacked Dubai’s world-famous Fairmont Hotel and debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel, the Burj Al Arab, and Dubai International Airport.
