A late surge in last-minute bookings couldn’t offset a rough spring caused by the war in the Middle East and tighter household budgets. Data from the Orchestra booking platform, tracked through August 18, shows that travel agency sales for July and August 2026 departures dropped 8% in number of bookings and 6.3% in revenue compared to the same stretch in 2025.
Mainland France held onto its usual spot at the top of the rankings, but it didn’t function as this year’s fallback option: bookings to France and Corsica sank 11%, and Greece, in third place, fell 10%.
Spain bucked the trend, climbing 2% to hold its usual runner-up spot as the top foreign pick for French travelers. Morocco, which has been ramping up efforts to court the French market, also gained ground, up 3%.
The biggest surprise was Albania, where bookings surged 277%, pushing the small Balkan nation into 10th place overall and cementing its growing presence on the travel map. According to Albania’s national statistics institute, French visitors to the country hit 293,299 last year, a 34% jump from 2024.
Elsewhere, the picture was bleaker. Egypt and Turkey, down 24% and 34% respectively, are still absorbing the fallout from Middle East tensions. The U.S. also took a hit, falling 32%, a slide tied both to wariness toward the Trump administration and to steep local prices. The U.S. had already lost 7% of its French visitors in 2025 compared with the year before.
