Tourists from the UK and mainland Europe are reportedly increasingly swapping their holiday destinations away from Cyprus, Turkey and Greece and towards Italy, Spain, Malta and Croatia, as the wider war-stressed Middle East region grapples with flight cancellations and airspace closures.

Representatives of leading travel agencies, namely TUI Group (Frankfurt/TUI1), Hay Travels and Kuoni, informed UK daily the Guardian about the changing habits of European tourists based on their observations in recent days, the publication reported on March 14.

Previously, London-listed travel agency On the Beach (London/OTB) said on March 12 in a trading update for its annual general meeting that it had experienced a significant slowdown in demand following the February 28 onset of the Iran-centred conflict in the Middle East, particularly as regards destinations such as Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt.

Turkey’s air space remains open to civil flights. However, Turkish airline operators have cancelled  flights to almost all countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE, due to war-caused airspace closures. Limited flights still go to Saudi Arabia and Oman.

$50-60bn at stake

According to official data, foreign tourist arrivals to Turkey hit a record high of 52.8mn in 2025, slightly up from 52.6mn in 2024. The country’s central bank, meanwhile, registered an all-time high $60bn in international tourism income from last year, up from $56bn the previous year, in the balance of payments.

Taking into account the travel to Turkey of 11mn Turkish expats, tourist arrivals and tourism income hit 64mn and $65bn, respectively, in 2025.

The Turkish government is targeting $68bn in tourism income this year.

In 2025, 6.9mn Russians visited Turkey, followed by 6.8mn Germans and 4.3mn Britons.

Last year, 19.7mn foreign tourists visited Istanbul, making the city the fifth most popular destination in the world. Another 18.6mn visited Antalya, Turkey’s summer tourism capital on the Mediterranean coast and the eighth most popular destination in the world.

It is estimated that the tourism industry directly contributes 5-6% of Turkey’s GDP in addition to an indirect contribution of another 5-6%. It employs more than three million people, about 10% of the country’s workforce.