Spain welcomed 9.1 million international visitors in April, the highest ever for that month, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran drove tourists away from Middle Eastern destinations. The figure represents a 5.2% increase – 450,000 additional people – compared with April 2025, according to official figures.
From the rooftop terrace of a hotel in Benidorm, Fede Fuster, president of the local tourism association, looked out over the city’s famous beach and high-rise buildings. “With all its virtues and its defects this is a place we feel proud of,” he said. “It’s a place of opportunities.” Fuster’s family was one of the first to build a hotel in the Mediterranean city, in the 1950s. Benidorm’s permanent population is just 77,000, but it swells to around five times that in the height of summer.
“Spain saw a record 9.1 million visitors in April, boosted by tourists avoiding Middle East due to conflict.”
The record April numbers cap a remarkable recovery from the Covid pandemic, which left resorts like Benidorm virtually deserted. Foreign arrival totals have broken records each year since, reaching 97 million in 2025. Spain is currently the world’s second-biggest tourist destination, behind France, and industry experts expect it to consolidate its success in 2026. “I think this is going to be a great year,” Fuster said. “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.”
The growth has been accelerated by the conflict. Initially, experts had forecast more modest expansion for 2026, but the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has made Spain an attractive alternative to Middle Eastern holiday destinations such as Dubai, Turkey and Cyprus. Dubai International Airport saw its passenger numbers drop by 66% in March as flights and bookings were significantly reduced. “In these moments of crisis, of [military] strikes or wars, the bookings always increase,” Fuster said, recalling a similar phenomenon during the Arab Spring in 2011. He insisted, however, that he would prefer to compete without that advantage.
Francisco Femenia-Serra, a lecturer in geography at Madrid’s Complutense University, explained the trend: “Any time that you have a crisis in the [eastern] Mediterranean or the Middle East, Spain is seen as a secure place to go.” He added that tourists who would normally go to Turkey or Egypt because of low prices might end up in Spain instead.
Tourism directly contributes 13% of Spain’s GDP, and the industry has been a crucial component in the country’s growth in recent years. With the prospect of 100 million visitors in 2026, Spain may soon overtake France as the world’s top tourist destination – even if Fuster would rather win that crown without the help of war.