Cyprus tourism sector hopes for regional calm to limit booking damage

Cyprus’ tourism industry is clinging to hopes that US President Donald Trump’s assurances on ending the war in Iran will soon be borne out, giving the island at least some chance of limiting the damage to summer bookings. 

Even if calm returns in the coming days, however, there is a growing sense within the sector that part of the loss has already been done.

For many in the industry, repeating last year’s record arrivals and tourism revenues now looks increasingly out of reach.

The difficulty lies not only in the conflict itself, but in when it erupted. 

For a large share of European travellers, the early spring period is when summer holiday decisions are made.

This year, that booking window coincided with the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the retaliation that followed across the wider region, reviving the image of the eastern Mediterranean as a zone of instability just as millions of holidaymakers were weighing up where to go.

That shift in sentiment is now being reflected in the wider Mediterranean market. Reuters reported this week that Spain and Portugal are seeing stronger flight bookings and hotel searches, as travellers steer away from destinations perceived to be closer to the conflict. 

According to Sojern data cited by Reuters, summer flight bookings to Spain, including transit flights, were up 32 per cent year-on-year as of April 2, while hotel searches rose by 28 per cent.  

Portugal also recorded strong gains, with flight bookings up 21 per cent and hotel searches 16 per cent higher. 

At the same time, Reuters cited data from travel intelligence firm Mabrian showing weaker interest in the Middle East during March and a clear shift towards the south-western Mediterranean, with Spain benefiting most from the change in traveller preferences. 

For Cyprus, by contrast, the picture has darkened. The island has found itself caught in the fallout of a war not on its soil, but close enough to shape perceptions abroad.

The March 2 drone strike at the British base in Akrotiri pushed Cyprus back into the European news cycle in a way the tourism industry could have done without, reinforcing concerns among travellers already wary of the wider regional backdrop.

Reuters had reported earlier that the conflict had already cooled early summer demand for Cyprus and Greece, as cancellations began to build. 

Elsewhere, the contrast is becoming starker. Reuters noted that up to 181 million tourists visit the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean each year, while Spain alone welcomed a record 97 million visitors last year.  

Spanish tourism alliance Exceltur has since revised upwards its forecast for 2026, arguing that the “safe haven” effect is already feeding through into bookings. 

Exceltur now expects Spain’s tourism activity to grow by 2.5 per cent in real terms this year, reaching 227 billion euro, up from an earlier forecast of 2.4 per cent.  

It also estimates that tourists switching destinations could bring an extra  4.2 billion euros to the sector as a whole. 

Spain’s hotel association Cehat expects room occupancy rates to rise by up to 3 per cent this summer, while tourism agency Turespana says airline seat capacity in April is running almost 6 per cent higher than a year earlier, with the sharpest increases coming from Britain and the US. 

Even there, though, the gains are not without caveats. Exceltur has warned that higher jet fuel prices and fresh disruption for long-haul travellers passing through Middle Eastern transit hubs could still weigh on profits. 

In Cyprus, the concern is less about margins than about momentum slipping away at exactly the wrong time. 

Speaking ahead of Travel Expo Cyprus 2026, Association of Cyprus Travel and Tourism Agents (ACTTA) vice-president Christos Christou said inbound tourism was already under pressure, with March showing a 30 per cent decline because of the war in the Middle East, compared with a previously expected 10 per cent increase before the conflict.  

He said the first half of April had moved relatively well thanks to Catholic and Orthodox Easter, but that the second half of the month was showing a marked slowdown, with May also expected to be weak.  

He added that some airlines had already cut summer schedules because of developments in the region.  

The harder numbers have also pointed in the same direction. It has been reported that passenger traffic at the island’s airports fell by 15.3 per cent in March to 599,218 travellers, citing Hermes Airports data. 

The figures and the market signals point to the same uncomfortable reality. Even if the war subsides quickly and confidence gradually returns, Cyprus has already lost ground during one of the most important periods of the tourism calendar. 

That does not mean the season is over. But it does mean the industry is now hoping not for another record year, but for a fast enough return to normality to prevent a weak spring from hardening into a disappointing summer.