International travel held its nerve in the first three months of 2026, with 307 million people crossing borders despite the escalating conflict in the Middle East, but the industry’s traditional Northern Hemisphere summer is now under a distinctly cooler shadow.
Fresh figures from UN Tourism’s World Tourism Barometer show international arrivals rose by 2% year-on-year between January and March, roughly six million more travellers than the same period in 2025. Cumulative growth ran at a healthier 2.5% through January and February before the impact of the Gulf crisis bit in March, when growth slowed to a slender 0.4%.
The agency now expects the conflict to clip between one and two percentage points off its original 3–4% forecast for the full year, depending on how long hostilities last and how far disruption spreads beyond the region itself.
For business travellers, the practical consequences are already visible: thousands of cancelled or rerouted flights, capacity withdrawn from key Gulf hubs, and a sharp climb in fares as jet fuel prices remain volatile. UK corporate buyers are feeling it acutely, with rationing concerns prompting a scramble for alternative routings and rail bookings.
Shaikha Al Nuwais, secretary-general of UN Tourism, struck a notably sober tone. “The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is disrupting travel patterns well beyond the region itself, including rising inflation, particularly in transport and accommodation,” she said. “This is placing pressure on travellers, businesses and destinations alike. Even amid this uncertainty, international tourism continued to show resilience in the first quarter of 2026, with 307 million people travelling internationally, a 2% increase on last year.”
Europe and Africa carry the quarter
Europe, still the world’s biggest receiving region, welcomed more than 130 million international visitors in Q1, up 4% on a year earlier and building on a robust 2025. Southern Mediterranean Europe and Northern Europe each posted 4% gains, while Central and Eastern Europe continued its catch-up with a 6% rise, helped, in part, by tourists redirected from troubled destinations elsewhere.
Africa also delivered a 4% uplift, with North Africa benefiting from a striking 18% surge in March arrivals and Sub-Saharan markets matching the regional headline rate.
Asia and the Pacific managed 3% growth, although the picture is uneven: February delivered a brisk 9% rise, but March slipped to 2% as disruption at Middle Eastern hubs triggered a 27% collapse in South Asian arrivals. Oceania (+9%) and North-East Asia (+5%) were the standout performers. Across the region overall, arrivals remain 11% below their 2019 peak.
The Americas eked out 2% growth, propped up by Central America’s 18% expansion, while South America slipped 1%.
The Middle East, by contrast, contracted by 14% — a sharp reversal after a 2025 in which the region had run 40% ahead of 2019 levels. Several Gulf destinations recorded heavy declines, although Egypt bucked the trend with a 16% increase, suggesting some redirected demand within the broader region.
Among individual destinations, the quarter’s best performers in arrivals were Paraguay (+46%), New Zealand (+45%), El Salvador (+43%), Mongolia (+39%), Palau (+37%) and Uzbekistan (+37%). On tourism receipts, Pakistan led the way with a 60% jump, followed by South Korea (+38%), Morocco (+24%), Brunei (+22%) and Brazil (+12%).
A cautious read for May-August
The latest UN Tourism Confidence Index, which tracks sentiment among some 300 industry professionals, scored prospects for May to August at 105 on the 0-200 scale, down from 117 for the opening four months of the year, but still above the 100 mark that denotes flat performance.
Just under two-thirds of panellists (64%) said the Gulf conflict was already weighing on demand in their market, with 21% calling the impact high. Around 61% reported softer inbound business, although 17% noted a boost as bookings were diverted from rival destinations, and 14% pointed to a lift in domestic travel as outbound trips were shelved.
The disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has pushed jet fuel prices higher and kept them volatile, feeding into an already inflationary services environment. With air fares climbing and capacity tightening, travellers are expected to hunt harder for value, and, in many cases, look closer to home. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated its advice on routes through the region, and UK corporate travel managers are revisiting risk policies accordingly.
There is a brighter note on the supply side of the Atlantic: Canada, the United States and Mexico stand to gain from co-hosting the FIFA World Cup in June and July, an event already reshaping demand patterns for business and bleisure travellers across sixteen host cities.
The numbers behind the seats
IATA’s latest data underline the airline industry’s mixed quarter. International traffic, measured in revenue passenger-kilometres, rose 4% in Q1 across all regions bar the Middle East, which slumped 16%. Capacity climbed 2%, but contracted 6% in March alone as Middle Eastern carriers lost 57% of available seat-kilometres in a single month. African, Asia-Pacific and European airlines absorbed much of the redirected demand.
Hoteliers’ fortunes mirrored the regional picture. Global occupancy held at 64% in March, level with a year earlier, according to STR data. Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific all sat at 65%, with Africa at 56% and the Middle East skidding to 48%, down from 75% in January.
For now, the headline reads “resilience”. But with summer bookings being made against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, higher fares and tighter capacity, the industry will need every bit of that resilience to keep the quarter’s modest gains from slipping in the second half.