Spain’s largest travel agency chain, Viajes El Corte Ingles, is close to matching its 2025 sales levels after almost three months of falling bookings triggered by the outbreak of conflict between the United States and Iran in late February 2026.
Industry sources said the company had recorded a gradual and sustained improvement over recent weeks, cutting the gap with last year’s sales figures until it stood very close to those levels. The recovery marks a significant turnaround for a business that, along with the rest of the Spanish travel sector, had seen demand weaken sharply from the end of February onwards.
The geopolitical shock that drove the downturn came quickly. Joint Israeli-American military strikes against Iran in late February 2026 triggered immediate disruption across the travel sector, with industry data from the first ten days of March showing a 17.6% drop in overall holiday sales. Long-haul destinations were hit hardest, as travellers pulled back from commitments and cancellations rose across multiple markets.
Viajes El Corte Ingles responded with an aggressive commercial offensive designed to revive demand and restore customer confidence. The company launched broad promotions and discounts while introducing unusually flexible booking conditions, including free cancellation offers, in an effort to reassure travellers who were holding back due to uncertainty about the developing situation.
The recovery is now being felt most clearly in the destinations that suffered the steepest declines at the height of the crisis. Asia is described as “waking up” by sector sources, while the Americas are performing well with only a few exceptions. Egypt, which saw one of the sharpest drops in demand at the start of the conflict, is now doing “very well”. Europe is also showing a positive trend across the sector.
Industry sources said travellers booking now can still find a wider range of options and more competitive prices than they are likely to encounter as the summer season progresses, pointing to an opportunity for those who have been delaying their holiday plans.
The wider Spanish travel market has proved more resilient than many other European markets during this period. Against the backdrop of the Iran conflict, Spain has been the strongest-performing market among all European countries tracked in Phocuswright’s Europe Travel Market Report 2026, underpinned by a sustained positive trajectory that predated the conflict and reinforced by demand diversion from the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
CaixaBank Research data shows that international tourism spending in Spain accelerated slightly in March 2026, growing at 11.2% year-on-year compared with 10.7% in February, driven by the redirection of tourist flows from main European source countries. The research noted that this scenario is consistent with a short-lived conflict, and that a prolonged crisis could change the picture significantly.
The conflict caused a spike in jet fuel costs, with prices jumping from the $85 to $90 per barrel range before the strikes to between $150 and $200 per barrel, a rise of more than 50% within a fortnight. Airlines passed a portion of those costs onto passengers through higher fares, adding further pressure to the booking environment during the worst weeks of the downturn.
The rebound at Viajes El Corte Ingles reflects a pattern seen across the Spanish market, where the combination of flexible pricing, promotional activity and the easing of immediate geopolitical anxiety has helped bring hesitant travellers back to the booking process. For now, the signals from Spain’s largest agency network point firmly towards recovery, though the wider market remains sensitive to any further deterioration in the geopolitical situation.
