Heightened conflicts in the Middle East and higher fuel costs have heavily impacted travel activities and tourism across the region and beyond, but the sector has learned to adapt to the changed circumstances, helping it regain its footing, industry veterans say.
Along with industry stakeholders, the market has seen travelers themselves adjust to the new environment, the experts said, pointing to the emergence of new segments, alternative routes, more flexible schedules and other phenomena.
“Having worked in travel for decades, I have seen that Bahrain is a very adaptable market. We saw that clearly this year. When air operations were disrupted, Gulf Air temporarily operated services through Dammam (in Saudi Arabia) to keep international connections moving,” said Fatima Ahmed, chairperson of the Association of Bahrain Travel and Tour Agents, the official industry body representing travel and tourism agencies in Manama.
Ahmed, who is the first Bahraini woman to hold the position at the industry body, also noted that Bahrain’s hosting of Formula 1 was relocated to Malaysia “under exceptional circumstances”.
She said these were good examples of finding practical solutions to solve problems.
Ahmed noted that international airlines suspended or rerouted services following their own operational decisions and external aviation safety guidance. In July, for example, Ahmed said, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency advised European-regulated airlines to avoid Bahrain and other Gulf airspace, although this was not a closure imposed by Bahrain.
“Travelers themselves are also adapting. Leisure passengers want greater flexibility, while business travelers look more closely at alternative routings. Businesses are doing the same, particularly with uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb,” she added, referring to the vital Gulf waterways that suffered disruptions due to the conflicts in the region.
Ahmed said that during the Eid al-Fitr festival in March, the number of Saudi visitors rose compared to Ramadan this year, though it was way below the 2025 numbers. But after the recent attacks on Saudi Arabian airports, the numbers started dropping again.
“We hope that November and December will have a higher number of visitors, bringing it closer to last year’s numbers,” Ahmed said.
“For me, the lesson is simple: we should acknowledge the challenges without allowing uncertainty to define us. Bahrain has always found ways to adapt and keep moving.”
Recovery plan
In September, the tourism ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar — approved a joint tourism sector recovery plan aimed at restoring momentum across GCC tourism markets. Fatima bint Jaffar Al Sairafi, minister of tourism of Bahrain, told Fortune magazine in an interview that the implementation would come “soon”.
GCC tourism revenues reached $131.9 billion in 2025, recording an annual growth of 9.7 percent while tourist arrivals were at 75.7 million, an increase of 4.9 percent compared with 2024, according to the Statistical Centre for the Cooperation Council for the Arab Countries of the Gulf.
In a recovering Syria, another country marred by years of war, the industry is seeing promising figures despite conflicts spilling in the region.
Syria’s tourism sector recorded significant growth during the first half of 2026, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported, with the total number of visitors, including Syrian expatriates, Arabs and foreigners, reaching 3.52 million, compared with 1.67 million during the same period last year, marking a 111 percent increase.
Hassan Haroun, CEO of World Travel Agency, a family business that started in Lebanon in 1966 and now has offices in Syria and Turkiye, said that prior to the recent flare-ups in conflicts, business in Syria was highly promising and experiencing robust growth.
He said the country continues to hold massive, untapped potential for foreign investors, particularly within the transportation and hotel accommodation sectors.
Initially, Haroun’s firm operated primarily as a travel agency, managing group tours to Syria from Lebanon, Turkiye, Algeria and Bosnia. However, the onset of the Syrian conflict in 2011 forced them to freeze their main operations by 2016. They eventually pivoted to a B2B model, acting as a local supplier and providing critical operational support to other travel agencies.
Today, they have officially resumed their operations in Syria, transitioning the core business model to function primarily as a Destination Management Company.
The volatility has severely impacted the tourism sector at large, disrupting everything from transport logistics to regional security frameworks, said Haroun, adding they were also recovering from years of sanctions by the United States and still facing some challenges in conducting digital payments.
He said these adverse effects were not unique to his company but weighed heavily on the entire regional tourism ecosystem.
“The impact of the current situation is highly segmented. For clients who planned their travel well in advance, the impact has been minimal; in fact, our Istanbul office is currently experiencing sold-out hotel bookings. Instead, the negative impacts are overwhelmingly felt by last-minute travelers, who face limited availability and increased logistical uncertainty,” Haroun said.
Despite higher fuel costs brought about by the regional conflict, Syria’s tourism boom is outpacing its hotel capacity. Syria’s domestic tourism market is rebounding rapidly to compensate for the stagnation of the war years, and this resilience is heavily driven by a unique demographic factor, Haroun said, citing an estimated 6 million Syrians who migrated to different parts of the world.
Today, he said these diaspora members are returning home for holidays and bringing along international friends eager to discover their homeland.
Haroun said increases in gas prices happen all over the world and whoever wants to travel will do so. He also noted that Syria is a land where people of several religious faiths come to visit and despite the wars, the pilgrims have not been deterred from visiting.
He anticipates a busy Christmas, with many hotels now reportedly being fully booked.
“While we are actively working to maintain our market share there, we are strategically expanding our horizon toward the Far East — specifically targeting Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan and South Korea,” Haroun said.
“We have already established successful active partnerships in Indonesia and Australia. While the European market remains an attractive long-term prospect, our current strategic growth and expansion efforts are firmly focused on the Eastern markets,” he added.
Wong Hong, director general of the Kuala Lumpur-based Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, said that high jet fuel prices are not as much of a shock to the airline industry now as compared to the initial months after the conflict started. However, he said the continued exposure to these higher costs will certainly add pressure to airlines’ operating costs.
“Even for those airlines who choose to re-hedge their fuel, this will be at elevated levels. With airlines only generating small margins even in good times, the sustained high fuel costs will certainly impact on the viability of carriers globally,” said Wong, adding that these high costs are not sustainable in the long run.
He said governments need to watch their home carriers for signs of financial distress and offer support or relief.
The impact of the US-Iran war was seen in Cambodia recently. The cruise ship Villa Vie Odyssey suspended its continuous round-the-world voyage while docked in the town of Sihanoukville at the end of October after its Florida-based operator said rising costs of fuel from the Iran war made the ship’s journey financially untenable.
According to a statement released by the maritime startup, fuel costs have risen sharply in the regions where the company has been operating.
“On an equivalent per-cabin basis, monthly fuel expense that historically averaged approximately $1,800 has recently reached an estimated $6,000 to $8,000 in parts of Asia,” the company said.
Thong Mengdavid, deputy director of the China-ASEAN Studies Centre at the Cambodia University of Technology and Science, said that when vessels like the Villa Vie Odyssey face operational disruption, it reveals how vulnerable Asian tourism is to global energy choke points due to threats to supply routes like the Strait of Hormuz.
He said that as an oil-importing country, Cambodia actively shields its economy and tourism sector from global price spikes. The government utilizes dynamic tax adjustments and fuel price caps, diversifies import partners across Asia, and rapidly expands domestic solar and hydropower to reduce fuel dependence.
Working together
Asian countries must work together to coordinate emergency oil stockpiles and maintain trade flow during crises, he said, mentioning the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement, an existing cooperation mechanism to deal with energy supply disruptions.
Matt Gebbie, managing director for Pacific Asia at Horwath HTL, an international hospitality and tourism consultancy, said that the Odyssey “is a warning sign, but not typical of the sector and not a reason to catastrophize”. He noted it was a small, older ship run by a young company with thin reserves.
While major cruise lines may “have the balance sheets and pricing power to absorb” fuel shocks, smaller operators with weak finances could find it difficult to cope.
“We may not have taken stock previously but as most of the region’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, Asian operators have faced some of the highest fuel hikes,” Gebbie said.
“When fuel costs per cabin roughly triple, as Villa Vie reported, there is no efficiency fix — you pass the cost on or stop sailing. We saw the same pattern earlier this year in the Philippines, where ferry operators cut inter-island routes and added fuel surcharges.”
He said he is “very optimistic” that the travel industry overall is in good shape and the foundations are solid.
“People in Asia still want to travel and that hasn’t changed. On the other side, COVID taught owners and operators some hard lessons and they run leaner now, watch cash more closely and move faster when conditions shift,” Gebbie said.
He also said it is not surprising that Asia-Pacific carriers are more exposed to fuel price spikes.
“My understanding is that many had little jet fuel hedging, and the contracts they signed before the war are now running out,” Gebbie said, adding that some airlines have also been avoiding taking out new hedges at today’s prices, in the hope that the war ends soon.
“AirAsia shows what this (impact) looks like,” he said, noting the Malaysia-based budget airline’s reported heavy losses in June as fuel costs surged.
“Low-cost carriers protect their margins by flying less, not by absorbing the cost,” Gebbie said, as he noted the importance of the carriers for intra-Asia leisure travel and destinations such as Bali, Phuket and Vietnamese coastal resorts.
While carriers may cut flights, travelers will adapt, rather than stop making trips altogether, Gebbie said, adding that they may opt for “fewer, longer trips and more domestic holidays”.
Secondary destinations will likely lose connectivity first and take the biggest hit, he said. As done in navigating the COVID-19 crisis, destinations and hotels “should focus on resilient domestic and regional segments, and always protect rate rather than chasing occupancy”, Gebbie said.
Haroun, the World Travel Agency CEO from Syria, said the Middle East conflicts and COVID-19 pandemic crises “differ fundamentally in scale”.
“The pandemic was a global paralysis, whereas the current conflict is localized and contained. Under the previous status quo and throughout the pandemic, Syria was effectively wiped off the leisure tourism map, with arrivals driven almost exclusively by religious tourism,” he said.
“The Middle East, including Syria, remains the cradle of the Old World, where global culture, historical knowledge, and the legacy of the Silk Road converge. Paradoxically, the heavy media coverage of the war has heightened global curiosity about the region. We firmly believe that the future holds immense promise for tourism here,” Haroun added.
Contact the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com
