Travel News · 8 min read · Updated 20 Apr 2026

Where is Britain actually going on holiday in 2026 — and why has everything changed?

Spain is still top. Italy is back. Turkey has collapsed. And the semi-exotic bargain holiday might be quietly dying. We looked at millions of bookings to find out what's really going on.

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The old European order is reasserting itself in 2026: Spain leads, Italy has reclaimed second place, and Portugal is quietly climbing into fourth. Turkey has collapsed — not a blip, but a structural shift driven by the end of the lira-collapse bargain, geopolitical proximity concerns, and resort-level quality issues. Greece remains up year on year and is now set to rise further after becoming the only Schengen country to exempt British passport holders from EES biometric checks entirely. Long-haul travel is booming among those who can afford it — Phuket up 112%, the Maldives up 62%, Barbados up 62% — while the mid-market semi-exotic short-haul segment that Turkey occupied is disappearing. Cost of living caution, post-Brexit travel friction, geopolitical instability, and climate anxiety are all pushing British travellers towards familiar, trusted destinations.

The old order is back. Sort of.

For most of the last 30 years, if you'd asked a travel analyst to rank where Britons go on holiday, they'd have written down the same five countries without blinking. Spain. Italy. France. USA. Greece. In roughly that order. Every year. Without fail.

The pandemic broke that. With large parts of the world closed or uncertain, travellers scrambled to find what was open, safe, and — crucially — cheap. Turkey surged. Greece surged. The familiar old hierarchy looked like it was gone for good.

It wasn't.

In 2026, Italy is back in second place. France is climbing back up. Greece is still up year on year — it hasn't fallen — but Italy has nudged past it for the first time since the lockdown era. The old order is reasserting itself.

Which is either reassuring or slightly boring, depending on how you look at it. But the reason the old order is back isn't just that Europe is open again. It's a more complicated story — about money, about safety, about climate, and about a creeping sense among British travellers that the world has got harder to navigate than it used to be.

What happened to Turkey?

Turkey was supposed to be the story of the 2020s. A massive, beautiful, historically rich country with world-class resorts, extraordinary food, and — for a few golden years — prices that made it feel like you were getting away with something.

The reason was simple: the Turkish lira was in freefall. Economic mismanagement sent the currency into a spiral, and British tourists were the unlikely beneficiaries. Your pounds went further in Bodrum than almost anywhere else on the Mediterranean. It was, briefly, wonderful.

But here's what happens when a currency collapses: eventually, inflation catches up. And Turkish inflation didn't just catch up — it arrived at speed, in the wrong direction, and with significant force. The lira is still weak. But prices in resorts have risen sharply to compensate. The bargain is gone.

Then there's geography. Turkey sits at the edge of a region that has felt anything but stable over the last two years. The conflict in the Middle East has cast a long shadow over traveller confidence in the whole eastern Mediterranean — not always rationally, not always fairly, but unmistakably. Perceptions of proximity to instability matter when people are choosing where to take their family on the one holiday they get this year.

Add in a reputation, in some resorts, for the kind of low-level tourist-facing problems that tend to emerge when economic distress hits a hospitality workforce hard — not universal, not fair to tar the whole country with, but real enough to spread by word of mouth — and you have a destination facing headwinds on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Turkey is down sharply in our figures. Not a blip. Not a bad year. A structural shift.

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Portugal: the quiet winner nobody's talking about

While Turkey has collapsed and Italy has reasserted, one country has been steadily and quietly climbing the rankings.

Portugal.

It sits fourth in our 2026 data, up year on year, and the reasons are more layered than they might first appear.

Part of it is the familiar appeal: beautiful, welcoming, perceived as slightly more affordable than Spain, with Lisbon as one of the genuinely great city-break destinations in Europe and the Algarve doing exactly what the Costa del Sol does, just more quietly.

But there's a post-Brexit dimension here too. Since the UK left the EU, travel to Europe has become measurably more complicated for British tourists — longer passport queues, the now-live implementation of the Entry/Exit System, a general sense that the frictionless freedom of movement that a generation took for granted is gone. In that context, Portugal has a specific and underappreciated advantage: it has one of the longest-standing bilateral relationships with the UK in diplomatic history, a deeply embedded British expat and tourist community, and a practical familiarity that makes it feel less foreign than the paperwork might suggest.

Portugal isn't the exotic choice. It's the smart choice. And in 2026, smart choices are what a lot of the market is making.

Greece, EES, and the limits of paradise

Greece is up year on year in our data — let's be clear about that. This isn't a story of decline. But Italy has nudged ahead of it for the first time since the lockdown years, and it's worth asking why.

Wildfires are part of the answer. The images coming out of Greece in recent summers — Rhodes, Corfu, Evia — have lodged in the public imagination in a way that's hard to dislodge. The fires haven't made Greece dangerous for tourists in any general sense, and the vast majority of holidays there pass without incident. But they have made some travellers hesitant.

Climate anxiety is reshaping travel decisions more broadly. It's not just about wildfires — it's about travelling somewhere in July or August and wondering whether it'll be 42 degrees and unpleasant rather than 32 degrees and glorious. The countries winning in 2026 tend to be the ones where travellers feel they know what to expect.

Now, though, Greece has a new and significant card to play. It has broken ranks with every other Schengen country and officially exempted British passport holders from EES biometric checks at all Greek airports and seaports. No fingerprints, no facial scan — just a traditional passport stamp. The decision was straightforward tourism economics: nearly five million British visitors came to Greece in 2025, up almost 8% on the year before, and Greece wasn't willing to risk that for the sake of summer queue management.

The practical effect is substantial. At major Spanish, French and Portuguese airports, EES biometric registration is already causing two-to-four-hour queues. Greece is exempt. For a British traveller choosing between two broadly similar Mediterranean sun holidays, that difference matters — and we expect it to show up clearly in our booking data as summer approaches.

The exemption is described as being in place "until further notice" — it's a temporary operational measure rather than a permanent change to Schengen rules. But for the 2026 summer season, it's a meaningful competitive advantage for the Greek islands and mainland alike.

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The data: where bookings are moving

Our Destination Leaderboard draws on millions of real bookings, and the 2026 picture is striking at both country level and individual destination level. The country-by-country data shows the consolidation of the familiar favourites, while the individual destination rankings reveal a more turbulent picture underneath — one that tells a story of bold long-haul spending at one end, and classic European choices at the other.

Country rankings: 2026 vs 2025

The top-line country data reinforces the headline: Spain is surging, while the traditional European favourites are all growing. The absence of Turkey from any meaningful growth position is telling. What you're seeing is a market recentring around certainty.

• Spain — up 28%
• Italy — up 5%
• Greece — up 5%
• United Kingdom — up 4%
• Portugal — up 4%
• United States — up 4%
• Turkey — up 3%
• France — up 3%
• Poland — up 2%
• Ireland — growing

Spain's 28% growth stands out sharply against the field. It's the clearest expression of the "retreat to the known" dynamic: when budgets tighten and the world feels uncertain, the country that has defined the British summer holiday for three generations becomes more attractive, not less.

Fastest-growing destinations: 2026 vs 2025

The individual destination data tells a more revealing story — and it supports the hypothesis of a market splitting in two. Look down this list and you'll see two very different types of growth sitting side by side.

At the top, Alpine and European city destinations dominate: Grenoble, Chambery, Innsbruck, Turin, Salzburg, Geneva. These are places that offer something different from the standard beach holiday — skiing, culture, cooler temperatures — and their growth suggests some travellers are actively seeking alternatives to the overheated August Mediterranean. Then, from Phuket downwards, you see the long-haul boom: Thailand, Sri Lanka, Egypt, the Maldives, Barbados, India, and beyond. These are destinations for travellers who've decided that if they're spending, they're really spending.

What's conspicuous by its absence is the mid-market semi-exotic short-haul destination — the kind of place Turkey used to occupy. Nothing in this list fills that gap.

• Grenoble, France — up 445%
• Chambery, France — up 137%
• Innsbruck, Austria — up 123%
• Phuket, Thailand — up 112%
• Tromso, Norway — up 109%
• Turin, Italy — up 99%
• Colombo, Sri Lanka — up 95%
• Luxor, Egypt — up 94%
• Banjul, Gambia — up 92%
• La Romana, Dominican Republic — up 84%
• Salzburg, Austria — up 76%
• Geneva, Switzerland — up 73%
• Miami, United States — up 72%
• Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda — up 72%
• Cairo, Egypt — up 66%
• Mumbai, India — up 65%
• Shanghai, China — up 64%
• Male, Maldives — up 62%
• Bridgetown, Barbados — up 62%
• Bangkok, Thailand — up 52%

The travellers going further than ever

While the middle of the market consolidates around safe, familiar, nearby European destinations, something very different is happening at the other end of the spectrum.

Long-haul travel is not dying. Among travellers who can afford it, it's booming.

What you're seeing is a market splitting in two. At one end: travellers retreating to the known, the nearby, the trusted. Spain. Portugal. Italy. France. Places where you know what you're getting and you're not going to be unpleasantly surprised. At the other end: travellers who are still spending — and spending more — going further. The Maldives. Thailand. The Caribbean. Not consolation prizes, but deliberate choices by people who've decided that if they're going to spend, they're going to properly spend.

What's disappearing is the middle. The semi-exotic, mid-market, just-a-bit-adventurous short-haul destination that felt like a bit of an adventure without costing adventure-level money. That was Turkey's space. And with Turkey gone, nothing has neatly filled it.

Why is this happening now?

Several things, working together and reinforcing each other.

The cost of living hasn't killed the desire to travel — people are still booking, still going, still prioritising their holidays even when other things get cut. But it has changed the calculation. When money is tight, you don't experiment. You go where you know it'll be good. You can't afford a bad choice.

Post-Brexit travel friction is real and is quietly influencing decisions. The ease of moving around Europe that British travellers grew up with has been replaced by something more effortful — and that effort pushes people towards destinations that feel familiar, well-trodden, and uncomplicated.

Geopolitical instability in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean has made a broad swathe of what used to feel like accessible holiday territory feel less certain. Not dangerous, necessarily. Just less certain. And certainty matters.

Climate anxiety — specifically the spectre of extreme heat and the very visible reality of wildfires — is making travellers think harder about when and where they go. The destinations winning in this environment tend to be the ones with a known, trusted track record.

Put it all together and you get a picture of travellers who are not fearful, exactly, but who are being careful. Careful with money. Careful with their one precious fortnight. Careful about risk. And the destinations that benefit from careful travellers are the ones that have spent decades earning trust.

So what does this mean for your summer booking?

The countries at the top of this data — Spain, Italy, Portugal, France — are going to be more popular than ever this summer. That means they're likely to book up faster than usual, and prices are likely to reflect the demand. If you're planning any of those destinations and haven't booked yet, that's your cue.

And Greece, which was already up 5% year on year, now has an additional pull factor that none of its Mediterranean rivals can match right now: EES doesn't apply. No fingerprint scan, no facial biometric, no queue. For a sun holiday in Europe this summer, that's a meaningful practical advantage that we expect to translate directly into booking volume.

But there's good news too. Plenty of destinations are almost as close, probably cheaper, and just as hassle-free — and they're not yet feeling the same price pressure. The Adriatic riviera. Poland's Baltic coast. Bulgaria on the Black Sea. The Greek mainland rather than the islands. These are places that offer the same clear water, reliable sunshine and European ease of travel, without the price spike that comes from being top of everyone's 2026 list.

The data doesn't just tell you where Britain is going. It tells you where the smart traveller might want to look instead.

The full picture of where Britain is headed this year, destination by destination, is at our Destination Leaderboard.

Holiday Extras tracks travel trends across millions of bookings every year, giving us a uniquely clear picture of where Britain is going — and why. Less hassle. More holiday.