Tourists reroute to Spain, Portugal
Travelers are booking Spain and Portugal in greater numbers for late spring and summer as tourists avoid Middle East hubs and destinations, producing a noticeable jump in local flight and hotel reservations. Reuters documented the booking surge and framed it as demand being rerouted rather than erased. (reuters.com)
Spain and Portugal are picking up late-spring and summer bookings as travelers shift away from Middle East routes and destinations. (gmanetwork.com) As of April 2, summer flight bookings to Spain were up 32% from a year earlier, and hotel searches were up 28%, according to travel marketing firm Sojern data cited by Reuters. Portugal’s flight bookings were up 21%, while hotel searches rose 16%. (gmanetwork.com) Reuters reported the shift on April 15 as a rerouting of demand rather than a collapse in travel demand. Mabrian, another travel data firm cited in the report, said bookings pulled back from Middle Eastern destinations last month while Spain gained as a substitute market. (majorcadailybulletin.com) The move builds on an already strong tourism base in Iberia. Spain received 5,569,036 international tourists in February 2026, up 2.8% from a year earlier, and 4,727,979 of them arrived by air. (ine.es) Spain’s airport network was already busy before the latest booking jump. Aena said its airports in Spain handled 20,555,745 passengers in February 2026, a 2.8% increase from February 2025. (dataestur.es) Portugal also entered 2026 with tourism growth in hand. Turismo de Portugal said the country logged 32.5 million guests in 2025, including 19.7 million foreign guests, while tourism revenue rose 5.0% from 2024. (turismodeportugal.pt) Airlines are adding seats into that demand. Reuters said capacity for Spain and Portugal was rising, especially from the United Kingdom and the United States, and Iberia separately said it would offer more than 1.28 million seats to the United States and Canada in summer 2026, about 19% more than last summer. (adept.travel) (aviontourism.com) That leaves Spain and Portugal absorbing trips that might otherwise have connected through or landed in the Middle East. The immediate effect is fuller planes, tighter hotel inventory, and a summer market in Iberia that is getting crowded earlier than usual. (adept.travel)
