War is only the starkest way that politics is disrupting tourism

When he began his blitz on alleged drug-runners in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump didn’t mean to hit watersports in Tobago. But it seems he did. Bookings are down for the peak winter season, says Brett Kenny, an operator on the island; some tour groups have stayed away. Other Caribbean countries have been hurt more by American strikes, especially in January, when the raid on Venezuela grounded flights and stranded travellers.

Geopolitics has long nobbled tourism. The Grand Tour, which took British toffs to Parisian salons and Roman ruins, was rerouted by the French revolution and Napoleonic wars. Today there are more international trips than ever: 1.5bn overnight visits last year, calculates the UN, above the pre-pandemic high in 2019 (see chart 1). But in the intricate vacation economy, there is also more scope for political disruption, intentional and accidental. Tourism is a microcosm of the tussle between globalisation and protectionism. More people than ever want to travel—but they face proliferating obstacles.

Wars cause the sharpest convulsions. Thousands of flights were cancelled after America and Israel attacked Iran. In its revenge bombardment of nearby countries, Iran damaged Dubai’s airport—a vital transit hub, like Doha’s in Qatar—plus a hotel on Palm Jumeirah, a flagship peninsula. The price of chartering private jets soared as fat-cats skedaddled via Saudi Arabia or Oman. The Middle East is losing at least $600m in visitor spending a day, estimates the World Travel & Tourism Council (wttc), an industry body.

“It takes time to rebuild trust” after a war, counsels Michael Ben-Baruch of Israel’s tourism ministry. His country’s travel industry is still recovering from the atrocities of October 7th 2023 and the campaign in Gaza. Last year Israel welcomed 1.3m international visitors, down by 71% from 2019. (Christian pilgrims and residents’ relatives are the most stalwart guests.) A new luxury hotel was scheduled to open in Jerusalem in time for Passover in early April. Then Israel’s airspace closed again.

Or think of the rippling effects of Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine—including for Russians themselves. For those who remember the Soviet Union, freedom to travel was a big dividend of its fall. They still can—but, because of Western restrictions, often to different places. In 2024 Russian visitors to the European Union’s borderless Schengen area were down by 90% on 2019. As rules for visas tighten, and existing ones expire, the blingy Russian contingents on the Côte d’Azur will shrivel. America continues to give tourist visas to Russians, but not in Russia itself; they are meant to apply in Kazakhstan or Poland. The number issued has plunged since 2019.

The ensuing rejig of travel habits reflects a wider switch in Russia’s relations. Turkey, which admits Russians without a visa, remains their favourite bolthole. But otherwise their top-ten destinations have shifted, reports the Association of Tour Operators, a Russian business group. In 2019 these included Germany, Estonia and Finland. All have vanished from the list for 2025, which features Egypt, Vietnam, the UAE and Indonesia. Among visitors to Russia itself, Americans, Japanese, Koreans and most Europeans have given way to Arabs, Indians and Iranians.

Other travellers have been affected too. Banned from Russian airspace, Western airlines must take longer routes from Europe to Asia. Each extra minute of flight that results is reckoned to raise air fares by $1.60. The Iran war has narrowed flight-path options again (and hiked fuel costs); an escalation in the fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan could squeeze them even further. Today it takes an hour longer to fly from London to Delhi than in 2021, and two hours longer to Tokyo.

Yet for all the hurdles and hassles, “People want to travel,” says Gloria Guevara of the WTTC. Vigorous pensioners and intrepid youngsters have helped tourism rebound from the wipeout of the pandemic—which stoked wanderlust rather than extinguishing it. Glimpses of paradise on social media entice people to far-flung locales. Around the world, the newly affluent want to see more of it; as countries grow richer, their citizens are welcome in more places. Last year’s record level of foreign trips is forecast to climb by over 50% in a decade.

Politics, though, will help steer this surge—especially the stance of the world’s two most powerful nations. Consider China first. In 2025 Chinese travellers made almost nine times more overseas trips than in 2000. Together they outspend any other nationality, says the wttC, splurging around $50bn more than Americans on travel last year. Places with benign visa rules for Chinese visitors, such as Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, are profiting.

Amid that increased mobility, however, China uses travel as a tool of domestic control and external leverage. Many employees of state agencies, or of publicly funded bodies such as universities, must surrender their passports. If they want to use them, their itineraries are vetted. As for everyone else: officialdom has a say in where they go—and where they don’t.

Many governments issue warnings about safety concerns in other countries, which deter visits in part by making insurance expensive or unobtainable. China’s guidance, which carries particular clout with government workers, is sometimes motivated by politics more than risk. Amid tensions with Japan, for example, Chinese officials have repeatedly advised citizens against going there. Chinese carriers have cancelled flights to Japanese airports.

Visits to Japan have duly plummeted—by 45% in December 2025 compared with a year earlier, says the Japan National Tourism Organisation, a state body. There was also a steep drop from 2025 over the recent Lunar New Year, popular for Chinese getaways. Like Saudi Arabia, which has spent lavishly to boost tourism, Japan has shot up the destination league, partly because a weaker yen makes it more affordable (see chart 2). China’s attitude is a setback.

Taiwan is also off-limits for most Chinese holiday-makers (amid strained relations, Taiwan isn’t keen to have them anyway). Still, the government’s sway over Chinese travellers is being undermined by their evolving habits. As they become more demanding and adventurous, more are making their own holiday plans—eschewing groups, some organised by state-run agencies, which are much easier to corral. According to Fastdata, a data-services outfit, in 2005 just 14% of Chinese tourists travelled independently; last year 83% of them did. The independent Chinese traveller will be a linchpin in tourism’s future.

Rather than dictating where Americans go, their government, meanwhile, is shaping who comes in. Citizens of 19 countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean are now ineligible for tourist visas, avowedly for security reasons; some others must pay hefty bonds to get them. Waiting times have risen. Unintended disincentives matter even more. Horror stories circulate of blameless tourists detained at America’s border. Footage of unrest in cities such as Minneapolis is alarming. Visitors could once blithely overlook such ructions, but in the digital age, they are part of the brochure.

Then there is the ambient sense that America has become a less friendly place. A poll of global travellers by Future Partners, a market-research firm, found the share who don’t feel welcome there has more than doubled in a year; outright refusal to visit America has almost tripled (see chart 3). The upshot is that it is the only major destination failing to capitalise on the travel boom. International visits declined by 6% last year, say the wttc and Oxford Economics, a consultancy. Already overtaken by Spain, America is set to fall behind China as a global draw. (France is top.)

Canadians, who in the past made up a quarter of arrivals, are particularly squeamish: the number crossing the southern border has sunk by a fifth. “It feels like a hostile state,” says Steve, a lawyer from Vancouver and formerly a regular visitor. “There are lots of other places to go.” Threatening to annex your neighbour turns out to be a bad marketing strategy. (Until recently sun-seeking Canadians also favoured Cuba, but its hotels are being choked by an American fuel blockade. It doesn’t take missiles to wreck a resort.)

All this means America’s “travel deficit”—the gap between visitor spending and what Americans blow abroad—widened to $72bn in 2025, says the US Travel Association, an industry group. This summer’s football World Cup will be a fillip. But, if enacted, a plan to make tourists submit five years’ worth of social-media activity will be toxic. A third of overseas travellers say this daft measure would put them off.

Closed airspace, fuel-price spikes, visa bans, wars, warnings, reputational self-harm: in all these ways, geopolitics determines where you want to go on holiday, how you get there, how much it costs, and whether you will be let in. In a more mobile and connected world—yet also a more fractious one—these glitches will wreck the plans of ever more travellers.

What a shame. When the world is ablaze, fretting over holidays may seem petty. It isn’t: besides being a huge industry, travel is an engine of happiness and progress. It makes lives richer; it stores up fond memories. By letting people grasp other cultures’ nuances, travel is also “fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness”, Mark Twain wrote. Every country, after all, is more than its politics. And as much as their differences, it shows strangers what they have in common. In fraught times, statesmen should smile on that. ■