The State of Travel 2026: 40 Numbers That Explain the Year
Strip out the trend-piece adjectives and 2026 comes down to a handful of hard numbers: 307 million people crossed a border in the first quarter, a war knocked two points off global growth, and the travelling public is quietly splitting in two — fewer people travelling, spending more each. Here is the year in figures, every one sourced and linked.
One thread runs through this report: rising fuel costs and squeezed airline capacity are pushing premium fares up. For groups, that maths increasingly favours fixing your price with a charter quote before the market does it for you.
Compare a private charter quote →The Four Headline Numbers
307M
International tourist arrivals in Q1 2026 — up 2%, roughly 6 million more travellers than the same quarter of 2025, despite the March disruption.
Source: UN Tourism World Tourism Barometer, June 2026
847M
Record international arrivals in OECD countries in 2025 — up 3.4%, on top of 8.1% growth the year before.
$1.37T
Forecast total US travel spending in 2026, in inflation-adjusted dollars — 87% of it domestic.
Source: U.S. Travel Association Spring 2026 Forecast
45%
Share of Americans planning a paid-lodging summer holiday — the lowest reading in six years of Deloitte's survey.
Source: Deloitte 2026 Summer Travel Survey (n=4,003)
Hold those last two together. Total spend at an all-time high; participation at a six-year low. That tension — not any single trend — is the story of 2026, and we return to it in the bifurcation section below.
The Regional Scoreboard, Q1 2026
All figures are international arrivals growth versus Q1 2025, from the UN Tourism World Tourism Barometer (June 2026 edition). Direction is stated in words as well as symbols.
International Arrivals Growth by Region
Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025 · UN Tourism
Notable sub-regions: Oceania +9%, North-East Asia +5%, Central Eastern Europe +6%. March disruption to Gulf air hubs contributed to a 27% decline in South Asian arrivals that month. Egypt bucked its region entirely at +16%. Source: UN Tourism.
The confidence number: UN Tourism's expert panel scores prospects for May–August 2026 at 105 out of 200 — still positive, but down from 117 for January–April. 64% of the panel say the Middle East conflict is denting demand for their destination; 17% report gaining traffic redirected from elsewhere.
The Surprise Winners
The fastest-growing destinations of early 2026 are not where the brochures point. Among countries reporting Q1 growth to UN Tourism:
Fastest-Growing Destinations, Q1 2026
Arrivals growth vs Q1 2025 · bar length proportional · UN Tourism
On receipts rather than arrivals, the double-digit earners were Pakistan (+60%), Republic of Korea (+38%), Morocco (+24%), Brunei (+22%) and Brazil (+12%). Source: UN Tourism. For how to spot destinations like these before the crowd does, see our guide to finding destinations before they peak.
2025's Record Books
The OECD's Tourism Trends and Policies 2026 (published 1 July 2026) closes the book on 2025: a record 847 million international arrivals across member countries. Four countries posted double-digit growth to record inbound levels:
Record-Setters of 2025
Arrivals growth to record levels · OECD
Japan and Korea's 2025 records stand on an extraordinary base: arrivals had already jumped +47.1% and +48.4% respectively in 2024, aided by expanded connectivity and a weak yen. Source: OECD.
Europe's ledger tells the same story from the accommodation side. Eurostat counted 471.1 million overnight stays in EU tourist accommodation in Q1 2026, up 3.4% — with Ireland the runaway outlier at +35.3% (and +42.3% in foreign-visitor nights), ahead of Malta (+11.1%) and Denmark (+9.3%). Foreign visitors accounted for 46.6% of all EU nights, rising to 93.3% in Malta.
The American Numbers
All figures from the U.S. Travel Association Spring 2026 forecast, built on the Tourism Economics model, in 2025 inflation-adjusted dollars:
$909B
Domestic leisure spending in 2026 (+0.9%) — the only travel vertical already above 2019 levels in real terms.
Source: U.S. Travel Association
−21%
The 2025 collapse in Canadian visits to the US — the single biggest driver of a 5.5% fall in total inbound visits to 68.3 million.
Source: U.S. Travel Association
70.6M
Forecast inbound visits for 2026 (+3.4%), lifted by the World Cup. The 2019 level of 79 million isn't expected back until 2029.
Source: U.S. Travel Association
$319B
Business travel spending forecast for 2026 (+0.7%) — growing, but still trailing leisure until at least 2027.
Source: U.S. Travel Association
Inbound spending tells the sharper story: down 2.4% in 2025 to $175 billion, rebounding a modest 1.6% to $178 billion in 2026 — still 18% below 2019 in real terms. If you're routing through the US for the World Cup summer, our guide to travelling through the United States during the World Cup covers what that demand spike means on the ground.
The Great Bifurcation
Now the number that should reorganise how the industry thinks. Deloitte's April 2026 survey of 4,003 Americans found:
Who Is Actually Travelling
Deloitte 2026 Summer Travel Survey, fielded 2–9 April 2026
The standout cohort: high-income millennials — more than 8 in 10 plan to travel, at 1.2× the frequency of other travellers and 1.6× the marquee-trip budget. 43% of them use generative AI to plan. Source: Deloitte Insights.
Read it plainly: participation is falling at the bottom, budgets are rising at the top, and the people still travelling refuse to trade down — Deloitte notes travellers are "largely unwilling to make significant compromises" even as prices climb. The luxury market is not defying the squeeze; it is being fed by it.
Europe's Summer, by the Card Data
The Mastercard Economics Institute's Travel Trends Report 2026 (18 May 2026), built on aggregated, anonymised transaction data, adds the spending texture the arrival counts miss:
Six of the world's top ten summer destinations are European, measured by growth in scheduled airline seats for June–September. Paris is the fastest-growing destination on earth this summer, with Amsterdam and Brussels close behind and Barcelona, Madrid and Frankfurt also gaining strongly — partly because airspace disruption elsewhere is rerouting traffic through European hubs.
The spending fingerprints are wonderfully specific: Swiss visitors to France concentrate on retail, British and Dutch visitors prioritise dining, German travellers allocate more to groceries — and in Spain, British tourists' bar spending runs 32% higher than the average international visitor's. Some clichés survive contact with the data.
Rising transport and accommodation costs cut across all of it — Mastercard flags affordability as the defining pressure of the year, echoing UN Tourism's expert panel. One practical consequence: with fares volatile and capacity tight, disruption is up, and so is the value of knowing your rights. Our EU261 explainer covers the rules; AirHelp pursues the claim — up to €600 per passenger — if your summer flight becomes one of these statistics.
What the Numbers Mean for How You Book
Book the squeezed routes early. Conflict-driven rerouting and fuel costs are tightening seat supply into the Gulf, South Asia and parts of the Mediterranean; the UN Tourism data shows exactly where capacity is under strain.
Follow the outliers, not the queues. Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Paraguay growing 37–46% from small bases means infrastructure improving faster than crowds arrive — historically the best window to go.
Insure the disruption year. With expert confidence falling from 117 to 105 and one conflict already reshaping flight maps, 2026 is a year for cover. SafetyWing handles the medical and interruption side for less than a checked bag.
The data says premium fares rise all year. Lock your group's summer routing before the next capacity cut does it for you.
Get a charter quote in minutes →Source Registry
Every figure in this report traces to one of the following primary sources. We link them in full because that is what we would want from anyone quoting numbers at us.
- UN Tourism, World Tourism Barometer — Volume 24, Issue 2, May 2026; press release "International tourism up 2% in Q1 2026 amid growing uncertainty", 2 June 2026. Q1 arrivals, regional growth, destination winners, expert panel and Confidence Index figures.
- OECD, Tourism Trends and Policies 2026 — press release, 1 July 2026. 847 million record arrivals; 2025 country records.
- Eurostat — "EU tourism nights in the first quarter of 2026 up 3%", 2 June 2026, dataset tour_occ_nim. EU overnight stays.
- U.S. Travel Association — U.S. Travel Forecast, Spring 2026 (7 May 2026), model by Tourism Economics. All US spending and inbound figures.
- Deloitte Consumer Industry Center — "Flight or fold: 2026 Deloitte Summer Travel Survey", 19 May 2026, n=4,003 US adults fielded 2–9 April 2026. Participation, budget and income-mix figures.
- Mastercard Economics Institute — Travel Trends Report 2026, 18 May 2026. Summer destination rankings and spending-pattern figures.
Questions Travellers Ask
How many people are travelling internationally in 2026?
UN Tourism counted 307 million international tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2026, up 2% and around 6 million more than the same period of 2025. The full-year forecast of 3% to 4% growth has been trimmed by 1 to 2 percentage points because of the Middle East conflict, but 2026 is still on course to be another record year for global travel volume.
Is travel demand growing or shrinking in 2026?
Both, depending on who you measure. Global arrivals are still growing, Europe is up 4% and EU overnight stays rose 3.4% in Q1. But Deloitte found only 45% of Americans planning a paid-lodging summer holiday, the lowest in six years, while households earning over $100,000 now make up 55% of all US travellers and marquee-trip budgets are rising. Volume is softening at the bottom of the market and hardening at the top.
Which travel destinations are growing fastest in 2026?
Among destinations reporting Q1 2026 growth to UN Tourism, the fastest were Paraguay (+46%), New Caledonia (+45%), El Salvador (+43%), Mongolia (+39%), and Palau and Uzbekistan (both +37%). Within Europe, Mastercard's flight-schedule analysis puts Paris as the world's fastest-growing summer destination, with six of the global top ten being European cities.
How is the Middle East conflict affecting travel in 2026?
Directly and indirectly. Arrivals to the Middle East fell 14% in Q1 2026, and disruption to Gulf air hubs contributed to a 27% decline in South Asian arrivals in March. Indirectly, higher oil prices and jet fuel shortages are raising air fares everywhere. 64% of UN Tourism's expert panel say the conflict is negatively affecting demand for their destination, and the organisation has cut its 2026 growth forecast by 1 to 2 percentage points.
How much will Americans spend on travel in 2026?
The U.S. Travel Association forecasts total travel spending of $1.37 trillion in 2026, rising to $1.42 trillion in 2027, in inflation-adjusted terms. Domestic travel accounts for 87% of that, at $1.20 trillion — back to 2019 levels in real terms. International inbound spending is forecast to rebound 1.6% to $178 billion, still 18% below 2019.
Is inbound travel to the United States recovering?
Slowly. International visits to the US fell 5.5% in 2025 to 68.3 million, driven mainly by a 21% collapse in Canadian visits. The U.S. Travel Association expects a 3.4% rebound to 70.6 million in 2026, helped by the World Cup, but does not expect a return to the 2019 level of 79 million visits until 2029.
What was the biggest travel record set in 2025?
The OECD reports that international tourist arrivals in its member countries reached a record 847 million in 2025, up 3.4% on top of 8.1% growth in 2024. Finland (+16.5%), Japan (+15.8%), Korea (+15.7%) and Norway (+12.5%) all hit record inbound numbers with double-digit growth.