The escalating tensions in the Middle East are costing the region's travel industry at least 600 million U.S. dollars daily in international visitor spending, according to an estimation of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) released on Wednesday.
The conflict has resulted in disruption to air travel, declining traveler confidence, and interruptions to regional connectivity, WTTC said.
WTTC's analysis is based on its 2026 pre-conflict forecast for the Middle East, which projects 207 billion U.S. dollars in international visitor spending across the region this year.
However, the council said that major regional aviation hubs including Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar's capital Doha, and Bahrain, which together normally handle over 520,000 passengers per day, have experienced closures and operational disruptions, significantly affecting regional and global connectivity.
Despite the current challenges, WTTC said that travel and tourism is one of the world's most resilient economic sectors.
Research of previous crises shows that tourism demand following security-related incidents, with the right response, can recover in as little as two months when governments and industry act quickly to restore traveler confidence, it said.
The Middle East plays a vital role in global travel with the region accounting for 5 percent of global international arrivals and 14 percent of global international transit traffic, according to the council.
Conflict costs regional tourism sector 600 mln USD per day
China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.
Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.
"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.
China's development never a threat: FM spokesman
