Travel Insights Weekly

• "City breaks," short 2–4 day or long-weekend trips, are seeing sharp, specific gains among European travelers. Among Italian travelers, city-break bookings to Seville are up 105% YoY, Prague up 47%, and Valencia up 36%. UK residents alone took 70.8 million holidays abroad in 2016, up 68% from 42 million in 1996, a rise widely attributed to budget airlines making short, frequent trips more viable than the traditional two-week holiday. British and Dutch travelers are also driving a specific rise in city-break trips to Normandy, France, a rural/coastal alternative to Paris.
• Roughly 80% of tourism in Europe is concentrated in just 10% of destinations, an overtourism in traditional hotspots that is pushing travelers toward "destination dupes" — lesser-known places that look or feel similar to more popular, overcrowded destinations. There's been a reported 41% YoY rise in travelers actively avoiding overcrowded destinations for summer 2026.
• As Barcelona and Venice manage record crowds, nearby alternatives are gaining visibility, including Slovenia, a quieter, more affordable stand-in for neighboring Croatia, with a growing rail network, and Ljubljana, its walkable capital. There are also waves of growth concentrated elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Baltics; Tbilisi, Georgia, is an emerging alternative to an increasingly crowded Prague.

• Interest in U.S. travel has fallen sharply this year across multiple European source markets. In France, for Q1-Q2 2026 reporting, the U.S. was the fourth destination international French travelers said they would avoid – the list includes Iran, Israel, and Afghanistan in that order before the U.S., and Russia as number 5. In the Netherlands, U.S. travel interest has collapsed to just 5% of vacationers, which is attributed to a mix of high jet fuel costs and politics. In Germany, a well-documented decline in U.S. travel is credited with driving a genuine boom in Canada as an alternative long-haul destination.
• In contrast, European long-haul travel to other locations increased substantially, with South Africa seeing an 11.1% YoY increase in travelers from Western Europe. European arrivals to Vietnam surged 56.1% YoY in the first half of 2026, led by double-digit growth from Germany (+16.1%), France (+13.8%), and the UK (+10.7%) specifically. Thailand's long-haul visitors — primarily from the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe — now account for over 28% of the country's total tourism revenue.

• Across the European airport network as a whole, flyer numbers fell 0.7% in April 2026 YoY, attributed to the Middle East conflict, a calendar shift in Easter timing, and German industrial action (i.e. strikes, walkouts, etc.). In the Netherlands, the share of vacationers flying dropped from 40% to 34% YoY, with driving rising to fill the gap; high jet fuel costs are the leading factor cited.
• International rail is picking up real momentum as international travelers seek alternatives to flying. Eurostar carried roughly 20 million passengers in 2025 and has ordered 50 new Alstom trains to lift that to ~30 million by 2030, spanning France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. Night trains are having a parallel moment: France's overnight rail hit a record 1M+ passengers in 2024 (+26% YoY), with routes like Paris–Toulouse running above 80% occupancy. Europe's 2026 night-train network now counts 40+ active routes, including new 2026 additions like a Paris–Berlin sleeper and Polish rail links to Prague and Munich.
• While France pulled subsidies for its cross-border Nightjet sleepers to Berlin and Vienna at the end of 2025, Dutch-Belgian operator European Sleeper stepped in for the Paris-Berlin route with its own service in March 2026, rerouted via Brussels and Hamburg with more capacity than the original. Paris–Vienna has no direct replacement yet, though a French National Assembly subcommittee has approved a partial €5 million subsidy for night trains in the 2026 budget — a signal funding could return, though not yet confirmed.
• Georgia and Azerbaijan regained a direct cross-border rail link when the Tbilisi–Baku overnight sleeper resumed service on May 26, 2026, after a six-year pandemic-era suspension. However, reopening comes with a notable restriction: tickets are currently limited to Azerbaijani citizens and travelers from countries with visa-free access to Azerbaijan, since Azerbaijan's land borders otherwise remain closed to general entry, most recently extended through January 2, 2027; Azerbaijan's land borders have been closed since 2020.

• Rising low-cost capacity is reshaping international travel patterns across Poland, the Balkans, and the Baltics, with Wizz Air, Ryanair, and regional carriers adding routes faster than in Western Europe. Wizz Air leads network growth for summer 2026, adding 341 new routes for August 2026 with flight volume up 23% and passenger numbers up 26% YoY in May 2026, concentrated in Central and Eastern Europe including expansion across Bosnia, Serbia, and Georgia. Ryanair kept its route count roughly flat at around 2,500 while growing overall capacity by about 6%, and easyJet added 16 new routes from 8 UK airports this season.
• Increasing low-cost air carrier capacity has also enabled many non-Western European cities including Prague, Budapest, Sofia, and Kraków to continue to draw value-seeking travelers from elsewhere in Europe — and beyond — as a lower-cost alternative to Western European capitals. Georgia is developing its own low-cost hub in Kutaisi, where Wizz Air has aircraft serving 20+ European destinations. Yerevan, Armenia has followed a similar path: FlyOne and Wizz Air now fly 60+ combined routes, giving this capital city arguably the strongest low-cost EU connectivity of the three South Caucasus capitals; Air Serbia will be adding new Belgrade links to both Yerevan and Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in 2026.

• 64% of UK adults are planning an international vacation in the coming year, down from 70% in the prior year, citing the Middle East conflict and cost-of-living pressures as contributing factors. Even so, vacations are the last area UK travelers say they'd cut back on, and 34% intend to spend more on travel this year than last.

• German travelers took a record 57.1 million holiday trips (five days or longer) in 2025, spending a record €91.7 billion. 78% of trip volume is international travel and 76% of the population plans to travel again in 2026. Long-haul travel now accounts for 17% of all trips, up from 11% a decade ago, and North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt) was among this season's top destinations, favored for price-performance ratio and improved safety perception.

• Trips abroad by Spanish residents rose 5.2% YoY in 2025, with spending abroad reaching €23.6 billion. 77% of Spaniards planned to travel this summer with an average budget of €1,758, roughly flat YoY. Europe dominates actual booking destinations: 69% travel within Spain and 36% elsewhere in Europe. Security was cited by 72% as a bigger factor in destination choice this year, pushing preferences toward closer, more stable destinations. Language and cultural affinity pull travelers from Spain specifically toward Spanish-speaking Latin America; Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile are the most-visited destinations in the region, though arrivals to these countries remain below 2019 levels.

• Negative sentiment toward U.S. travel is accelerating fast: the share of Dutch travelers viewing U.S. travel unfavorably jumped from 44% to 60% in a single year, driven by geopolitical tension and the U.S. trade-policy climate. Canada is the clear direct beneficiary, explicitly framed as the go-to alternative for travelers who'd been planning a U.S. trip. Nearly 14% of international travelers from the Netherlands are considering Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, or Vietnam this year.

YoY growth in scheduled airline seat capacity by destination (Ministero del Turismo, Apr. 2026).

In a 2026 Ipsos survey of French travelers from Q1-Q2 2026, 49% said they would travel internationally while 51% said that they would remain in France. The below chart shows the top 5 destination preferences of the 49%. The U.S. dropped out of the top 5 entirely this year, replaced by Canada.

Ranked by YoY growth in vacation package bookings (flight + accommodation) among French Sunweb clients (Feb. 2026).

Source: Statistics Norway.

YoY change in those who traveled abroad, 2024 vs. 2023

Sources: Eurostat, tour_dem_totot, 2025 release for Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria; National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat); Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia; State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

• In 2025, overnight international visits increased 4.3% YoY to 1.5 million, and total travels, including same-day and transit trips, rose 2.8% to 2.9 million. This is in contrast to the more flat YoY change in the number of people traveling abroad from Georgia in 2024. Türkiye and Russia are top international destinations for Georgians, and shopping and visiting friends/relatives outweigh holiday/leisure as the leading purposes for outbound trips. Spending on international travel reached 2.4 billion GEL ($876 million USD) in 2025, up 5.9% YoY.
• Armenian residents made 1.73 million trips abroad in 2025, up 2.8% YoY, a third consecutive year of growth, but a deceleration when compared to 2024.
• International travel from Azerbaijan fell 2.3% in 2025; Türkiye, Russia, Georgia, and Iran were the top destinations. Georgia was the fastest-growing of those top destinations through most of the year while travel to Russia fell sharply throughout that same year period.

• Poland interest in international travel is accelerating sharply. Google's Poland search data shows interest in domestic destinations down nearly 32% YoY, while searches specifically related to international flights are up 12.5% YoY. Poland has become a particular focus for Wizz Air, Ryanair, and LOT Polish Airlines, with dozens of new international (and domestic) routes reinforcing Warsaw and other Polish cities as a Central European connectivity hub.
• Eastern European international travel spending was at $148 billion in 2023, projected to reach $228 billion by 2030 — a roughly 7% annual growth rate. International travelers from Eastern Europe currently spend less per person per night than their Western European counterparts, but the region is adding new outbound travelers faster than most of the continent. The low-cost carrier growth concentrated in and around Eastern Europe is simultaneously making the region less expensive to visit and easier for its own residents to travel abroad.