The war in Ukraine is also shaking tourism and threatens to erase the recovery that the tourism sector expected for this year.

Political instability, the fear that the conflict will spread to other countries, the closure of airspace and the rise in fuel prices cast significant clouds, despite the fact that Spain, along with Portugal and Greece, is one of the « refugee destination", since it is one of the furthest from Ukraine.

In fact, it is one of the countries where reserves have fallen the least.

Forwardkeys, a tourism intelligence company, has analyzed reservations in the week after the invasion: those of flights for trips within Europe fell 23%, while they fell only 13% for trips from the US.

Within Europe, the countries most affected are those closest to Ukraine and Russia: Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, the Baltic republics... experienced a 30% to 50% collapse in bookings for future travel.

All other European countries experienced falls of between 10 and 30%, except for Belgium, Serbia and Iceland.

direct hit

“The direct impact is already beginning to be felt, due to the rise in fuel prices, which affects all flights, and due to the impact on demand, because when there is a war, people think twice before booking.

It is foreseeable that if the conflict is prolonged in the end it will have an impact on the demand for air transport”, says Javier Gándara, president of ALA, the Airline Association, which represents more than 80 companies.

Flights will be more expensive, and so will package tours and possibly hotels, as costs have increased, primarily energy, but also food.

«The fact that Russia is a nuclear power that provides energy to the rest of the countries means that we have a problem in Europe as a tourist destination.

The war discourages travelers and inflation reduces the spending capacity of families, "explains Jorge Marichal, president of Cehat, the hoteliers' association, which predicts that the prices of packages and flights will rise.

Marichal, who believes that people will wait almost until the last moment "to make their purchases, when everything is already more expensive."

DESTINATION REFUGE

Spain could indeed be, within Europe, one of the destinations perceived as safer, since competing countries, such as Turkey or Croatia, are much closer geographically to the war.

"Spain is a safe country as an option on vacation, in conflicts it has always positioned itself as a refuge destination, also because we have shown a serious balance with respect to Covid," says Jorge Marichal.

Our main source markets, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, "will opt for our country to a greater extent, as well as for Portugal or Greece, further away from the focus," explain sources in the sector.

Added to this is a foreseeable increase in national demand, which already sustained tourism last summer.

Marichal believes that if flights go up, people will choose to travel less.

In the case of the Caribbean, for example, they were "destinations that were moving a lot, but the change in trend will be in the price of fuel, and if flights go up, people will stay home."

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had an immediate impact, stalling what had been a strong recovery in travel since early January.

But transatlantic travel and Western European destinations have been less affected than feared and so far, it seems that travelers see the rest of Europe as a relatively safe destination, "says Juan A. Gómez García, chief of intelligence of Mmarket in ForwardKeys.

The routes between Spain and Ukraine before the pandemic only represented 1%, although the problem is that a large part of the airspace is closed and European planes cannot fly over Russia and vice versa.

Spain no longer has the million or so Russian and Ukrainian tourists who visited us either.

They are not "not even 1% of the total, but they did have significant spending capacity, and although they focused on only two or three destinations in Spain, they will notice their absence in these areas," says Marichal.

These destinations are Marbella, the Costa Dorada and Tenerife, above all.

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Know more

  • Europe

  • Ukraine

  • Russia

  • Croatia

  • Greece

  • Portugal

  • United Kingdom

  • Tenerife

  • France

  • Germany

  • Bulgaria

  • Coronavirus

  • Turkey

  • United States

  • Serbian

  • Belgium

  • Poland

  • covid 19

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