Escalating conflict in the Middle East has broad implications for international travel, including youth travel. The effects extend beyond the region through delayed, cancelled and re-routed flights, but also instabilities for stock markets, fuel and energy prices, trade routes and diplomatic relations. Disrupting travel disturbs youth travel. Disturbing youth travel reverberates through much more than just travel.

International youth travel has a long track record as a multi-faceted tool for education, cultural exchange and mutual understanding. Youth travellers on average stay longer and spend more than a typical tourist, bringing economic activity into the destinations and locations that they study, volunteer, intern, and learn in. This is not to mention the value brought to these destinations by the family and friends that visit them while abroad. Globally, young travellers aged 15 to 29 comprise 23% of international arrivals each year. In 2025 that was an estimated 350 million youth trips valued at USD 424 billion in tourism receipts.(1)

Although young travellers are known to be a resilient segment in travel and tourism, armed conflict directly and immediately disrupts study abroad, internships, language immersion courses, volunteer and work experience programmes, educational exchange and many other forms of youth travel. The longer-term impacts of geopolitical conflict on youth travel include inflation, border restrictions, negative perceptions of safety, fewer local businesses, high unemployment, and diminished opportunities for young travellers.

Through social media young people become aware of global issues quicker than ever. They are also able to support causes they care about in ways not possible for previous generations of youth. Destruction, fear, hunger and humanitarian need are the graphic images of war that we all confront by looking at the news on our phones. While activism via social media has become an important tool in civil society, the intensity and integrity of digital information has psychological effects on young people that we are only beginning to understand.

Despite the current disruptions and anticipated impacts of the conflict in the Middle East, youth travel will retain its powerful potential as a force for good in the world. The youth travel segment has grown in terms of travellers and spend since WYSE Travel Confederation began tracking it in 2002 and the world’s youth population is expected to grow to more than 1.3 billion by 2040.(2) How the youth travel industry evolves to serve this powerful travel segment of the future remains to be seen, but for decades it has always risen to the challenge and succeeded in creating a way forward.

Footnotes:
(1) https://www.wysetc.org/research/the-power-of-youth-travel/
(2) https://www.wysetc.org/2023/03/international-youth-travel-poised-for-continued-stability-and-growth-in-volume-and-expenditure