Middle East tourism collapses as regional conflict triggers mass cancellations

The tour guide Nazih Rawashdeh stood in northern Jordan watching his March calendar empty. Three days before, his last group of tourists had departed. Every other booking for the month—the start of the high season, when his work should have been fullest—had evaporated. "This is catastrophic," he told AFP, then added the detail that would define the moment: "And yet there's no problem in Jordan. It's perfectly safe."

This contradiction sits at the heart of what is unfolding across the Middle East. The region has become one of the world's most sought-after destinations, drawing roughly 100 million international visitors in 2025 alone—nearly seven percent of all cross-border tourism globally. That figure had been climbing steadily, up three percent year-over-year and 39 percent since before the pandemic. Europeans form a large share of these arrivals, joined by travelers from South Asia, the Americas, and neighboring Middle Eastern countries. In Dubai alone, nearby markets accounted for 26 percent of all visitors in 2025. The tourism machinery had been humming.

Then the war arrived, and the machinery seized. Tour operators worldwide scrambled into crisis mode. Alain Capestan, president of the French operator Comptoir des Voyages, laid out the immediate problem: getting people already in the region back home. But the disruption extended far beyond those stranded. The Gulf region hosts several of the world's major aviation hubs—Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha—which means the conflict was affecting travelers heading to entirely different parts of the world. German tour operators Alltours, Dertour, and Schauinsland-Reisen announced they would absorb the cost of extra nights for clients trapped in the Middle East and cancelled all trips to the UAE and Oman through at least March 7. The British travel industry association ABTA instructed its member agencies not to send customers to the region as long as the British Foreign Office maintained its advisory against non-essential travel. Customers would receive refunds or the chance to rebook.

The economic weight of this collapse is staggering. Oxford Economics, analyzing the fallout, projects that inbound arrivals to the Middle East could decline between 11 and 27 percent year-over-year in 2026—a sharp reversal from the 13 percent growth the firm had forecast in December. That translates to between 23 and 38 million fewer international visitors than previously expected, and a loss of $34 to $56 billion in tourist spending. The blow lands harder now than it would have in previous years because tourism's share of regional GDP has grown substantially, as has employment in the sector. What was once a secondary economic engine has become central to how these economies function.

Rawashdeh's frustration carried the weight of this larger story. For six months before the war, tourism workers in Jordan had felt genuine hope. Visitors were returning. The sector was recovering its footing after Covid and the earlier Gaza conflict. "And now there's a war," he said. "This is going to be terrible for the economy." Yet not everyone has abandoned hope entirely. Ibrahim Mohamed, marketing director of the Middle East Travel Alliance, which connects American and British tour operators to regional destinations, acknowledged the slowdown in new bookings but expressed confidence in recovery. "The Middle East has always been an incredibly resilient market, and demand always bounces back fast once stability returns," he said. The question hanging over the industry is not whether tourists will eventually return, but when—and whether the destinations can sustain themselves until they do.