Is Europe demand really down? Sellers paint nuanced picture

2026-05-04

Air booking data suggests a summer slowdown in Americans’ travel to Europe, but the luxury market appears to be flat-out thriving while the mass market might be waiting for fares to drop.

Aviation data firm Cirium analyzed air bookings from early January through late April, reporting that U.S.-to-Europe transactions for travel in July were down 10.5% year over year, with Frankfurt down 22.7%, Athens down 18.2% and Munich down 12.9%. Paris, Dublin and London were down around 10%.

But travel advisors and tour operators that serve affluent travelers are telling a different story.

Virtuoso reported that total hotel sales by its member advisors for Europe this summer are up 31% year over year, driven by a 13% increase in bookings, a 13% rise in total nights and a 15% increase in average daily rate.

According to David Kolner, Virtuoso’s executive vice president of strategic communications, summer’s strength extends into the fall, with Europe sales up 20% for September and October.

“These stories about sales being down might be the case for the mass market or for airline seats, but we’re really not seeing it,” Kolner said, adding that Europe’s perception as a safe haven appears to be driving some of its strength.

At its Virtuoso Symposium in Seoul in April, a poll showed that Continental Europe was the top beneficiary of travelers rerouting away from conflict-affected regions, with 59% of members naming the region as a top alternative.

Rebecca Bullen, a SmartFlyer-affiliated luxury advisor, also said that her Europe bookings are ahead of 2025, with Italy, France, Greece and Scotland leading the way, and that the Iran war has driven an uptick in inquiries.

Hemal Jain, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair in London, said strong inbound travel from the U.S. and Asia was more than offsetting softened Middle East demand. He said hotel guests were gravitating toward major gateway cities perceived as stable.

“Overall, the outlook for summer remains positive,” Jain said, though he acknowledged that guests are prioritizing clear cancellation policies and booking within a tighter window, with “some rate sensitivity at the margins.”

Jan Freitag, the national director of hospitality market analytics at CoStar, also expressed optimism about summer luxury travel.

“We have now seen over the last five years that the luxury traveler is relatively immune from the headlines,” Freitag said.

A waiting game?

If luxury demand is prosperous, what’s driving the big drop in air bookings?

According to Petros Zissimos, managing director of New York-based Greek travel specialist Hellenic Holidays, part of the answer may be timing. He said some of his clients have booked tours and accommodations but are deliberately holding off on air, hoping that fares will fall or that airlines will launch sales once the Iran war abates.

Zissimos cited a couple that had booked a July trip to Greece early this year but had yet to purchase airline tickets because premium economy fares hovered around $2,000 per person roundtrip. Some clients, he added, are setting fare alerts on sites like Kayak and waiting for prices to drop.

Traveler hesitation also is showing up in website traffic data. A late-April report from travel marketing agency Propellic, drawn from 30 days of performance data across more than 60 midmarket travel brands and 27 destinations, identified what they called a “Mediterranean sentiment spillover.”

Propellic’s data shows that visits were up for content about Greece and Spain travel but conversion rates have fallen, suggesting traveler interest is high but the willingness to commit is not.

Whitney Ramirez, senior vice president of sales for TTC Tour Brands, reported something similar. She said Americans’ demand for Trafalgar tours in Europe is steady but acknowledged that some are “adopting a wait-and-see approach before committing to a booking.”

“The desire to travel hasn’t diminished,” Ramirez said. “Travelers are simply being more intentional about when and how they’ll travel.”

Graham Carter, CEO of luxury tour operator Unforgettable Travel, said his company has seen some weakening of demand for Europe since the Iran war began, with clients taking longer to commit or pushing trips into 2027. Italy, France, Croatia and Spain are holding up well, he said, but Greece and Turkey have softened.

Even so, Carter said April was Unforgettable Travel’s strongest month, up 25% year over year, though roughly 60% of those bookings are slated for 2027.

Price sensitivity is also emerging as a drag on demand. Zissimos said the sweet spot in a market like Greece has traditionally been the value-for-money traveler, with that segment increasingly “being priced out.”

Likewise, SmartFlyer advisor Bullen reports that the euro’s move against the dollar, from roughly 1.08 last March to 1.17 now, is weighing on clients booking in the range of 850 to 1,000 euros per night.

She added that hotels crossing the barrier of 1,000 euros per night may be encountering some resistance among the price-sensitive travelers in the luxury market.

“There’s a psychological barrier to seeing that extra digit at the end of the nightly rate,” said Bullen.

Courtesy of Travel Weekly