Spain's visitor numbers hit new highs as tourists avoid Middle East

Spain's visitor numbers hit new highs as tourists avoid Middle EastImage caption, Spanish tourist sector boss Fede Fuster says that overseas visitors must be made to feel welcomeByGuy HedgecoeBusiness reporter, Reporting fromBenidormPublished8 June 2026128 CommentsFrom the rooftop terrace of a hotel, Fede Fuster looks out across Benidorm, at the nearby high-rise buildings and the town's famous, sweeping beach."With all its virtues and its defects this is a place we feel proud of," he says. "It's a place of opportunities."Fuster is the president of the local tourism association, and his family was one of the first to build a hotel in this Mediterranean city, in the 1950s.Benidorm's population is still only 77,000, but it swells to around five times that number in the height of summer, due to its status as one of Spain's prime tourism draws.Since the Covid pandemic left resorts like Benidorm virtually deserted and the Spanish tourism industry at a standstill there has been a remarkable recovery. Foreign arrival numbers into the country have broken records each year, and totalled 97 million in 2025.Currently the world's second-biggest tourist destination, just behind France, Spain is expected to consolidate its recent success in 2026."I think this is going to be a great year," Fuster says. "I'm optimistic, we're talking about reaching 100 million tourists in Spain. If we keep growing like this we're going to be number one [in the world] very soon."Industry experts had originally expected 2026 to see more modest growth. But the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has made Spain an attractive alternative compared to Middle Eastern holiday destination Dubai, and countries in the eastern Mediterranean, such as Turkey and Cyprus."In these moments of crisis, of [military] strikes or wars, the bookings always increase," says Fuster, who recalls a similar phenomenon in 2011...